First Combine-Dominion War

The Combine-Ghost Bear War (later known as the First Combine-Dominion War) was a conflict between the Draconis Combine and the Ghost Bear Dominion in 3062-3063. Occurring in the midst of the FedCom Civil War, the conflict also revealed the continued manipulations of the Kokuryu-kai, or Black Dragon Society, in the Combine.

Background

During Operation Revival the Clans conquered most of the Alshain Military District, including the titular capital, and destroyed most of the Alshain District Regular regiments. The four surviving regiments, now renamed the Alshain Avengers, swore to liberate their district at all costs. During the reclamation of those Combine worlds lost to Clan Smoke Jaguar in 3058, the Avengers fought well but to their dismay the offensive halted at the border with Clan Ghost Bear. The Avenger regiments obeyed orders to hold their positions but resentment set in among them.

Exploiting this discontent, the Black Dragon Society exerted its influence over the Avengers, and ISF Director Ninyu Kerai Indrahar later concluded that Alshain District Warlord Toshimichi Uchida and several other officers had become members of the Society. With Black Dragon support, Uchida was able to plan and initiate Operation BATU, an unauthorized surprise assault by all four Avenger regiments upon Alshain, now capital of the newly established Ghost Bear Dominion.

The War

The Opening Assault on Alshain

The Avengers invasion of Alshain was intended to cripple the Ghost Bear leadership and spark an all-out liberation war, with the rest of the DCMS being forced to follow the Avengers into the Ghost Bear Dominion. Already risky, the plan suffered a serious setback even before the Avengers crossed the border: Clan Nova Cat forces based on Yamarovka had anticipated the attack thanks to a vision experienced by one of their MechWarriors, and the Eleventh Avengers sharing the planet with the Cats were intercepted and crushed.

What they did not know was that Alshain had become the heavily defended capital of the Ghost Bear Dominion, with the Ghost Bear Clan having relocated almost all of its assets to its Inner Sphere Occupation Zone. Induced by a vision, Clan Nova Cat destroyed one of the Avenger regiments before it could travel to Alshain, but unbowed by this attack the three surviving Alshain Avengers launched their suicidal assault. Half a regiment was lost fighting their way down from orbit due to defending Ghost Bear WarShips, where the rest of the force was effectively obliterated on the surface.

Ghost Bear Retaliation

As the Avenger survivors fled into the wilderness to launch a desperate guerrilla war, the Ghost Bear touman launched a retaliatory invasion of the Combine, striking across the entire border between the two powers, including territory held by the Nova Cats.

Initially the invasion was incredibly successful, in part due to the fact that Coordinator Theodore Kurita was in the process of relocating his Ghost Regiments to the Federated Commonwealth border to protect his nation from any spill-over from the looming FedCom Civil War. He was forced to bring the Ghost Regiments back to the Ghost Bear border, only to have forces from the Draconis March, led by Duke James Sandoval, launch an invasion of their own. This attack by Duke Sandoval was in retaliation for the incursion of a border region known as the Lyons Thumb by units masquerading as Combine and mercenary troops. The Duke's invasion was successful in capturing important worlds such as Al Na'ir, Marduk, Proserpina, and Ashio. Meanwhile the Ghost Bears suffered reversals of their own. While the Combine continued to lose worlds to the Ghost Bears, the DCMS' valiant efforts and counter-attacks made each more victory costly than before; at the same time (and at the suggestion of Vlad Ward of Clan Wolf), Clan Hell's Horses struck at the Ghost Bear's weakened flank.

With both sides now looking for a way to honorably extricate themselves from the conflict, Coordinator Theodore and Khan Bjorn Jorgensson negotiated a settlement in 3063 which tried to appease everyone. Both agreed to return whatever worlds they had conquered to their original owners and instead fight a Trial of Possession for Courchevel, which the Ghost Bears won. With peace between them both the Ghost Bears and Combine were able to turn their attention back onto their other opponents.

While having captured six worlds, Duke Sandoval's forces were ill-supplied as most of their logistical support was tied up in the civil war, and Combine forces were able to defeat them with relative ease. In December of 3064, in what became known as the DCMS Reprisal, Combine forces invaded the Draconis March and fought on for another two years; the conflict finally ended following negotiations with Baron Tancred Sandoval with the ceding of two contested worlds to the Combine. The indecisive nature by which the Coordinator had allowed these conflicts to end cost him some support within the Combine, though it was suspected that the Black Dragon Society had been responsible for starting them.

Meanwhile the Ghost Bears' response to the Hell's Horses Clan attack proceeded faster and more aggressively than anyone suspected: not only did they succeed in retaking all of their lost territory, they completely expelled the Hell's Horses from the Inner Sphere by conquering all three of their worlds. They would also go on to capture Gunzburg and, eventually, Rasalhague from Clan Wolf for their part in goading the Hell's Horses into attacking.

Bibliography

• Era Report: 3062
• Field Manual: Updates
• Path of Glory (novel)
• Test of Vengeance (novel)