2nd Defenders of Andurien

2nd Defenders of Andurien 2596.png
Second Defenders of Andurien
Formed 2514[1]-2528[2]
Disbanded ca. 2860[3]
Nickname Eye of the Storm[1]
Affiliation Free Worlds League
Parent Command Defenders of Andurien


History[edit]

Founding[edit]

The Defenders of Andurien brigade formed in 2514, a few years before the start of the Second Andurien War between the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League.[1] It is likely that the Second Defenders of Andurien were formed at the same time, and by the beginning of the Second Andurien War the Second Defenders were an active, BattleMech-equipped regiment - one of two to have been created by Duke Allard. When the Capellan forces invaded the Andurien worlds in 2528 an effort to seize Mesillia Allard, the daughter of Duke Allard, as a bride for the mad Chancellor Kalvin Liao the Second Defenders were on the front lines, taking heavy damage on Sadurni and with a company deployed on Andurien itself, defending the capital city, Jojoken.[2]

Although it was a new formation, the Defenders performed well in battle, but soon found themselves in political hot water because of the Defenders loyalty to House Humphreys and the Duchy of Andurien, rather than to the Captain-General of the Free Worlds League. With the loss of Andurien to the Confederation as a result of the Treaty of Geneva in 2556 the Defenders adopted a position of civil disobedience towards the federal government that would persist for centuries.[1]

Reunification War[edit]

By the time of the Reunification War the Second Defenders of Andurien were a unit with no home; Andurien itself and a number of other worlds had been ceded to the Capellan Confederation as a condition of the Confederation's Andurien Commonality as a part of the peace agreement between the Confederation and the Free Worlds League that precipitated the end of the Age of War and the formation of the Star League.[4]

The Second Defenders of Andurien was one of six regiments chosen to serve in the 2nd Marik Auxiliary Corps formed in 2581[5] to support the Star League Defense Force when the Star League decided to intervene in the civil war that had been raging inside the Rim Worlds Republic since 2575.[6]

The 2nd Marik Auxiliary Corps incorporated the Second Defenders of Andurien along with the Second Regulan Hussars, the Second and Sixth Marik Militias and the First and Second Brigades of the Fusiliers of Oriente. The 2nd Marik Auxiliary Corps was one of a number of Corps that made up Task Force MAILED FIST, the military component of Operation MAILED FIST, the Star League operation within the Rim Worlds Republic between 2581 and 2596 and would serve alongside the Draconis Auxiliary Corps, the Lyran Auxiliary Corps and the SLDF IV Corps, VI Corps and VIII Corps.[5][7]

The Second Defenders saw their participation against the Rift Republican Army and the Rim Provisional Government as an opportunity to prove that the reduced Duchy of Andurien remained a strong and vital part of the Free Worlds League.[4] The Second Defenders spent the bulk of Operation MAILED FIST operating alongside the Regulan Hussars and the Second Brigade of the Fusiliers of Oriente. Together, the three regiments would fight campaigns on Urjala in 2583, Kitopler in 2586, New India in 2587, Slewis in 2590 and Toland in 2593. The Defenders of Andurien and the Hussars went on to fight on Apollo in 2596, but the Fusiliers remained on Toland.[5][7]

Urjala[edit]

The campaign to secure Urjala saw the Defenders of Andurien fighting against the same battalion from the Fourth Amaris Fusiliers[8] that had successfully conducted a very damaging raid on at the main spaceport facility on Alarion in 2581,[9] and while the Free Worlds League forces quickly crushed the Amaris Fusiliers they rapidly found themselves experiencing similar problems to Task Force MAILED FIST units on other worlds - they lacked the numbers to exercise sufficient control over the ground, and as a result found their hold on Urjala slipping away in the face of a rebellious population. Eventually, a portion of the garrison on the nearby world of Bolan was dispatched to Urjala to help secure the Star League grip on the world, but the Defenders of Andurien would remain on Urjala for another two years.[8][5]

New India[edit]

The Defenders of Andurien fought the Fourth Amaris Fusiliers for a second time on New India, which was the garrison posting of the other half of the Fourth; in contrast to many of the other planetary campaigns being fought at the time, the fight on New India was actually a stand-up fight, with the Fourth Amaris Fusiliers fighting hard and selling themselves dearly, but without resorting to the more desperate or savage guerrilla and resistance tactics the SLDF was facing on other worlds.[10]

Slewis[edit]

In contrast with the difficult occupation of Urjala and the fierce battle for New India, the campaign for Slewis was remarkably easy; an agricultural world with a large timber industry, Slewis was targeted by the Fusiliers, Defenders of Andurien and Regulan Hussars in May 2590 and was the last world in the Timbuktu Province to be captured, but the occupation consisted largely of the leaders of Slewis calmly acknowledging the arrival of the Free Worlds League forces before simply continuing their farming and logging operations.[11]

Toland[edit]

The Defenders of Andurien and their companion units from the 2nd Marik Auxiliary Corps operated largely independently of the other units within Task Force MAILED FIST; other than the large-scale operation to secure Apollo, the only exception to this was the campaign to secure Toland, where they fought alongside the SLDF Eighteenth Division against the local militia forces.[5][7]

Apollo[edit]

Duke Narinder Selaj, the overall commander of the 2nd Marik Auxiliary Corps and the second-in-command of the ground component of the operation to secure Apollo led the Regulan Hussars and the Defenders of Andurien personally to liberate First Consul Gregory Amaris from the Rim Provisional Government forces besieging his island estates. Duke Selaj managed to easily defeat the forces besieging the Amaris' estates, only to find Amaris himself to be unpleasant, hostile, and thoroughly ungrateful for his rescue; Amaris regarded Selaj as a provincial minor lordling from the Free Worlds League, despite the far greater wealth and population of the Principality of Regulus, and bitterly resented the time taken to rescue him and the poor conditions he considered himself to have lived in... conditions far more opulent than most of his citizens or the soldiers of the Task Force had endured. Despite the difficulties in dealing with Amaris, Duke Selaj was able to send his troops and liberated Amaris loyalists to join the forces outside Terra Prime.[12]

Following the injuries taken by Archon Viola Steiner-Dinesen in an attempted ambush that went wrong and saw the Lyran Fourth Royal Guards mauled by the Seventh Amaris Legionnaires and the Eighth Amaris Fusiliers command of the ground operations on Apollo passed to General Nathan Isaacson of the SLDF. Ignoring calls from Gregory Amaris for a highly destructive campaign to destroy the rebel forces, Isaacson directed the Defenders of Andurien and the other Task Force MAILED FIST units on Apollo to lay siege to the Rift Republican Army and RPG forces on Apollo, resulting in a campaign that limited the loss of life on both sides and saw the Provisional Government and their supporting forces surrender in September 2596.[12]

Star League Era[edit]

When the Marik Civil War erupted the Second Defenders chose to support Oliver Marik; their hope was that the usurper would allow the Defenders to go to war with the Confederation and recapture their homeworld, but those dreams vanished when Oliver was captured and executed. Following the attack on the Timothy Leary by the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces in 2745,[13] the Second Defenders found themselves in troubled political waters once more. Captain-General Ewan Marik mustered a large contingent of federal and provincial forces on Solaris in the wake of the attack, and as a part of his buildup Marik demanded that a regiment from the Defenders join the task force. President Radford Humphreys refused to acknowledge the order, and as Humphreys was the brigade commanding officer Marik was forced to attempt to contact each of the regimental commanders directly, breaking the chain of command. Just as with the other regiments, the commanding officer of the Second Defenders refused the order, citing the twin problems of tension on the border with the Confederation and bandit raids as factors that would destabilize the Duchy if any of the Defenders of Andurien deployed outside the region. The standoff continued until the SLDF navy forced the Captain-General to disperse his gathered forces.[1]

Whereas most of the provincial forces received some degree of federal funding from the Free Worlds League during the Star League era the Defenders' role as secessionists left them in last place when it came to obtaining matériel from Free Worlds League industries and with no access to federal funding. Forced to rely solely on funding from the Duchy of Andurien the Defenders generally fielded equipment that was less advanced than both federally controlled forces and the provincial forces of the other League provinces, but the Second Defenders managed to maintain both high operational readiness and a remarkably high level of morale nevertheless. If anything, the lack of advanced equipment and federal funding served as a clarion call for the Second, highlighting for them yet another reason why the Duchy should seek further independence from the federal government.[1]

Second Succession War and Demise[edit]

During the Second Succession War the Second participated in Operation STOOP in 2832, as part of the FWLM forces tasked with retaking Sappho and Nam Dinh from the Capellan Confederation.[14] In 2836 the regiment attacked Aquagea during Operation ATTRACT, eventually claiming that world after a lengthy resistance by the Third Sian Dragoons, though the Second was later forced to quit Aquagea during the ComStar War.[15][16]

The Second was among the FWLM units stationed on Andurien itself in October 2838 when a sizeable CCAF invasion force landed on the planet, leading to the Fifth Andurien War. After nine weeks of heavy fighting the Liao invaders were repulsed.[17]

In the final years of the Second Succession War the regiment was disbanded after sustaining crippling losses three times in the space of a single decade. Unlike other damaged Defender regiments it was never rebuilt. According to legend a Capellan shaman named Cephas cursed the Second Defenders of Andurien after they razed his home village, leading to the so-called "Cephas's Jinx" being cited as an explanation for bad luck among Defender units.[3]

Officers[edit]

Rank Name Command
Commanding Officers of the 2nd Defenders of Andurien

Tactics[edit]

Unknown.

Composition History[edit]

2528[edit]

Second Defenders of Andurien[2]

- At this point the Second was based on Sadurni.[2]

2765[edit]

Second Defenders of Andurien (Regiment/Regular/Questionable)[18]

- At this point the Second was based on Thurrock.[18]

2786 - 2821[edit]

2nd Defenders of Andurien (Regiment/Regular/Questionable)[19]

Note: At this point in time the light-weight unit was stationed on Thurrock. In 2821 the command was reduced to 37 of its strength and was deployed at Thurrock.[19]

2830[edit]

2nd Defenders of Andurien (Regiment/Veteran/Questionable)[20]

Note: At this point in time the medium-weight unit was stationed on Thurrock with an operational readiness of 58 percent.[20] The unit was destroyed during the war.[20]

Notes[edit]

Field Report 2765: FWLM gives the founding date of the Defenders of Andurien as 2514, two years before the First Andurien War. This contradicts with other sources which give the date of the First Andurien War as 2398 to 2404[21][22][23][24][25][26] and the dates of the Second Andurien War as 2528 to 2531.[26]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Field Report 2765: FWLM, p. 17: "Defenders of Andurien"
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Paladin
  3. 3.0 3.1 House Marik (The Free Worlds League), p. 101
  4. 4.0 4.1 Historical: Reunification War, p. 38: "Second Defenders of Andurien"
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Historical: Reunification War, p. 152: "Rim Worlds Republic Front (Jump-off - 2587)
  6. Historical: Reunification War, p. 131: "False Starts (2579-81)
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 Historical: Reunification War, p. 153: "Rim Worlds Republic Front (2588-2596)"
  8. 8.0 8.1 Historical: Reunification War, p. 134: "Helbrent to Nightwish (July 2582 - November 2584)"
  9. Historical: Reunification War, pp. 132–133: "Alarion (December 2581)"
  10. Historical: Reunification War, p. 135: "Arlina to Viborg (December 2584 - September 2588)"
  11. Historical: Reunification War, p. 136: "Illium to Barcelona (March 2589 - August 2591)"
  12. 12.0 12.1 Historical: Reunification War, p. 139: "Bitter Harvests (2591-2596)"
  13. Field Report 2765: FWLM, p. 4: "Strategic Update"
  14. Second Succession War, p. 41
  15. Second Succession War, pp. 41–42
  16. Second Succession War, p. 68: "A New Type of War"
  17. Second Succession War, pp. 50–51: "The Battles for Andurien"
  18. 18.0 18.1 Field Report 2765: FWLM, p. 17: "Regimental Status"
  19. 19.0 19.1 First Succession War, p. 138
  20. 20.0 20.1 20.2 Second Succession War, p. 98
  21. House Marik (The Free Worlds League), pp. 14–15: "Andurien Crisis"
  22. House Liao (The Capellan Confederation), pp. 28–29: "Liao Against Marik"
  23. Handbook: House Marik, p. 15
  24. The Star League, p. 35: "Fateful Andurien"
  25. Handbook: House Liao, p. 24: "Timeline: The Age of War and the Star League"
  26. 26.0 26.1 Era Digest: Age of War, p. 7: "The Age of War: A Brief Timeline"

Bibliography[edit]