The Battle of Do'rville

[Greywall]

Casualties

UST: 2,983
Frannerre: 1,453

[callmedelta]

The infantry continued to rush into the outlying trenches of Do'rville. It was their job to capture them before joining the cavalry in the city, an important cornerstone in liberating Do'rville. The charge consisted of over 300,000 infantrymen, the entire army Claude had available to him. It was, to a word, overwhelming.

The cavalry, meanwhile, ran through the city trying to locate wherever the artillery was firing from and silence them. They were to capture the guns, and potentially their crews as well. Whoever had sent these weapons, in a roundabout way, was responsible for this madness. There would be hell to pay.

[Greywall]

It was a grim situation, utterly encircled and cut off from supplies. Falalu’s forces fought against the onslaught in horrid conditions, sections of the city were falling rapidly though and the lines compressed more and more with each passing day to the center.

The UST artillery was the only real thing inflicting damage as the guns continued to hammer the Frannerre likely slowing them just enough to buy time.

Falalu gathered his officers and instructed them, no surrender orders. He had to hope that either the Frannerre would make another mistake as before tactically or that Taronki might succeed in Ferville and send reinforcements. But cut off from the rest of the war there was no way the Ferville forces would know about Falalu’s predicament.

[Greywall]

Casualties

UST: 7,925
Frannerre: 3,982
824 cavalry

[callmedelta]

Victory was close at hand, the Franerri army could feel it. Their enemy was low on supplies and demoralized, while they were the exact opposite. In the trenches, the grinding battle of attrition would gradually push the Union infantry back closer and closer to the city, while in the city itself the cavalry would find the artillery they were looking for, guarded by some more Union infantry. The guns were massive, seemingly more fit for a fort than in field use compared to what Franerre could muster on that front. But it would not matter now. Given the pathetic resistance so far offered by the weak Union infantry, the cavalry would rush the men with repeaters blaring and sabers drawn. This was the lynchpin of the defenses of Do'rville. If they fell, the city would too.

[Greywall]

The brutal onslaught that faced Falalu’s men broke their will. After fierce fighting many companies simply surrendered. The inner circle of the city remained where Falalu and his best troops remained. The artillery utterly exposed as it fired its last rounds before being overwhelmed by the Frannerre.

Falalu locked himself in the wine cellar of the house, waiting for the now inevitable fall of his last defenses. Gatling guns and hardened riflemen of his personal unit fought a final stand.

[Greywall]

Casualties

UST: 12,563
34,000 captured
300 field guns seized


Frannerre: 456 cavalry
6,935 infantry

[callmedelta]

With the fall of the artillery and the surrender of many of the infantry in the outlying trenches, the battle had practically been one. Now all that was left to do was the cleanup. Bringing in some artillery and simply bringing Falalu's whole world down around him was contemplated, but ultimately it was decided Falalu would be better taken alive. That meant there was little subtlety to the capture: whatever remained of Falalu's personal guard was overwhelmed with sheer weight of fire from the cavalry who assaulted the manor.

[Greywall]

The last fight of Do'rville was around the ruined mayor's house, Falalu waiting in the basement listening to the sounds of gunfire and screams, when silence came so did the Frannerre. They would find Falalu sitting at the table overlooking the map of Do'rville and Frannerre, he said nothing laying his revolver and saber on the table as a sign of surrender.

[Greywall]

Casualties

UST: 234
Frannerre: 456

[callmedelta]

Wordlessly, General Falalu would be taken from where he sat along with his revolver and saber. He would be sent back to Fort Mercer to be imprisoned there, while the rest of the Union army would be held in a prison camp outside of Do'rville. 40,000 Standard Infantry, 4,000 Special Infantry, and 400 Artillery would be left to garrison Do'rville and assist in the reconstruction effort, while the remaining 60,000 Cavalry, 110,000 Heavy Infantry, 160,000 Standard Infantry, 1,500 Artillery, 1,100 Mortars, and 12,500 Special Infantry would begin their march to Juaz after spending a few days in Do'rville to recover

[callmedelta]

Memories

General Claude Riegan walked through the ruins of Do’rville, doing his best to imprint the memory in his mind. Buildings, blasted apart by artillery, charred by fires started God knows where, or pockmarked by bullet holes. Maybe only one in twenty were standing, if his estimate was generous. None of them were without their scars. The bodies of the dead still lay in the streets, Franerri, Union, and Tafatu civilian alike. Given the decomposition of some of the Franerri bodies, they had to be from when the city first fell. Even with that, it was the bodies of the civilians that disturbed him most. There would always be some unfortunate accidents in war; it did not always happen in open fields, away from anything valuable. It was a real thing, a ravenous beast that roamed where it pleased. But the amount of bodies here; it was no war, it was a slaughter. Why? Why? Claude felt sick. It wasn’t the stench of death and destruction that was responsible; Claude had grown to tolerate them, even if he could never get used to them. It was the mindless, pointless brutality of it all.

He shifted from taking in the city to taking in the men of his guard who marched around him, keeping watch for any Union troops who hadn’t surrendered. Their faces were stony, for the most part. They scanned the scene of destruction around Claude, they didn’t see it like he did. He envied them, in a way. Even though General Claude had come here of his own free will, he didn’t like to see this. But he needed to. Somebody had to remember this place, remember what had happened here. It may as well have been him.

Claude’s focus shifted back towards the city as he came across a pile of corpses, none of which appeared to be Union, in what once may have been a park of some sort. Evidently General Falalu’s men had bothered to clean up the city somewhat before abandoning the project. He could understand why, in a way. General Claude’s own efforts had only begun to help a small fraction of the city so far. To get rid of all of the bodies and rubble could take years, and to restore Do’rville to its former glory could take decades, even though Claude knew that wasn’t why the Union had stopped their cleanup. Supposedly a battalion of foreign medics were coming, from Diria if he remembered correctly. There was so much death, so much destruction, so much violent slaughter for no good reason. Could this place, could these people ever be healed?

Claude approached the mass of bodies, the stench and the flies even beginning to overwhelm him. He knelt down next to one of the dead Franerri soldiers, fishing around for the dog tags around his neck. Pierre Bargeux, 51st Division, 1st Battalion, 3rd Company. Pierre deserved to be remembered, didn’t he? Didn’t every man, woman, and - though Claude didn’t wish to think it - child deserve to?

General Claude stood, turning back the way he came. He still had a job to do. The army was resting after the battle, processing prisoners, and gathering more supplies, but that process was close to finishing. Some forces would be left here to garrison the city, but Claude would be leading the army onward towards Juaz. But Claude would make sure: somebody would remember them.

~~~

Justice?

“General Claude, sir?” Claude looked up from the map he was pouring over, and turned to see whoever it was who had spoken. It was Major General Roman Duval. He would be left in charge of the forces garrisoning and reconstructing Do’rville.

“What is it, Duval?”

“Well, I’d like your opinion on something before your forces left,” the Major General asked, stepping inside the tent, “It’s about the Union prisoners. I don’t really know if we should be surprised…but a lot of the Tafatu women aren’t exactly claiming the best things about the Union troops.”

“Just spit it out, Roman,” Claude sighed, “I don’t have all day.”

“Well, it’s not exactly easy to say that the ones who only got raped are the lucky ones, compared to some stories the women are saying.” Claude didn’t quite know how to respond to that, the wording hanging in the air like the pervasive stench of death.

Claude turned back to the map, frowning as he thought for a minute. “...so why come to me?”

“You’re my senior officer,” Roman said.

“And you’ll be in charge here when I leave in-” General Claude paused to check his pocket watch “-eighteen hours. You need to know how to make these kinds of decisions.”

“I’m an officer, not some politician,” Duval pleaded, “Throw me into a battle and I can do my job just fine. It’s not going to be too hard to get the men clearing rubble and handing out food to the Tafatu, especially when we have more aid coming from Franerre. But the officer’s academy didn’t exactly have a course on what to do with a bunch of butchers and rapists. If we don’t lay down some sort of ruling on this, I wouldn’t be surprised if the women stormed the prison camp and our own soldiers would throw open the gate and turn a blind eye. And I wouldn’t blame them.”

“Tell me, do you ever fancy yourself a promotion, Major General?” General Claude asked.

The question caught Roman off guard. “...I’m comfortable where I am, though I think I would take it given the opportunity.”

“Humbleness and knowing one’s self are the signs of a good officer, Roman,” Claude said, “But being a General makes you as much a politician as an officer. Consider this a trial of Generalship. I have confidence in your decision making ability, Major General, and this is all I will say on the topic.”

~~~

Perhaps

Major General Roman Duval stared at the prison camp that hosted the surrendered Union troops. It was a hastily made thing, more a loose collection of half-finished buildings with too many people crammed into them surrounded by barbed wire, than anything. The constructions had been declared ‘adequate,’ and the soldiers not on duty guarding the prisoners had moved onto the herculean task of trying to begin clearing the rubble from Do’rville. They were butchers and rapists, or men who had stood aside and let the butchers and rapists do their dirty work.

Perhaps another man would have been filled with righteous anger, but after seeing the destruction wrought upon Do’rville, he simply felt somber. Tired. He simply didn’t have it in him to order eye for an eye butchery. Yet something still had to be done. There were a few Gendarmerie units attached to the army, but there wasn’t exactly a lot of evidence to gather on who precisely did what in the chaos of both the butchery and the battle.

Perhaps it would take some time for Duval’s plan to see itself through to fruition, but it was the best he could come up with. A catalog of the Union prisoners was to be made, with the names and faces sketched on whatever paper could be scrounged up. The women of Tafatu would have an opportunity to look at these drawings to pick out any man who may have wronged her. The soldier in question would be physically brought before the woman, and if she was still confident the man had committed a crime, he would be turned over to the new Tafatu government for them to deal with when the war was over.

Perhaps Roman just didn’t have the stomach for what needed to be done. Perhaps he was just a coward, pushing it off until it was someone else’s problem. Perhaps he didn't have it in him to be a general.

Perhaps he just didn’t want to be a butcher.