Great Berskin Revolt

The Great Berskin Revolt (SA 298-301) was a major war during the Herrenkrieg between the discontent Berskin tribes, led by their king Landen I, and the Imperial Arkyne government and their Arloginian allies. The war was the result of mass abuses by Warden-Lord Symon Jeryme of the West March, which forced the Berskins into a state of open revolt against the Crown. King Landen led his people on a devastating campaign across the country, first plundering through the Middefold, where he fought a large Imperial expedition to a standstill at the Battle of Haleston, and then invading the Rottfold, where he reached a settlement with Staffhalder Becker and defeated a second Imperial army in the Battle of the Rottsee. Finally, the Berskins invaded the Heathan, nearly sacking Harerok before supply shortages and military reverses forced them to retreat back into the Middefold, where they were finally defeated by the army of warlord Julian Saric. During the course of the war, the Berskins layed waste to huge tracts of the countryside, and much of the Middefold and Franchurst never recovered from their depredations.

Background
In the summer of SA 294, a huge group of Galeish refugees, consisting mostly of Berskins but including some Keraskins and Werens, arrived at the foot of the Eisenfold Mountains and requested temporary asylum within the Arkyne Empire's borders. The tribals had been displaced by the Kamuji invasion some three years earlier, and had since been slowly making their way east across Gale, warding off hostile tribes, Kamujis, and dangerous conditions. Westreach was at this time increasingly divided between the reformist faction of Staffhalder Philip Haladrian and the Paleanist Queen's faction, which had control over Emperor Sirius V; the Emperor, seeing the request as an opportunity to gain manpower in the brewing civil war, thus granted asylum to the tribals under the condition that they serve in his armies upon request. Between late October and early December of SA 294, the tribals, numbering perhaps 200,000, crossed the Eisenfold at Irontown, where they were supposedly disarmed by Imperial authorities.

SA 298: Outbreak
In accordance with their treaty, Imperial authorities settled the Berskins along the Aranieul River in a string of reservations. These encampments were initially meant to be temporary, but a lack of available funds meant that the Berskins remained in them for over two years. Conditions in the encampments had soon deteriorated, and the monthly grain allotments which had been promised to the tribes were neglected, leading to several instances of general starvation. Abuses by the guards became common as Warden Symon Jeryme permitted and even encouraged exploitation of the tribals, who by early SA 298 had grown increasingly restless and hostile. In response to a series of confrontations around the overcrowded Merelstrung encampment in May of SA 298, Imperial authorities ceased regular patrols and began the construction of a ring of walls around the tribals, causing conditions in the encampment to decline further.

As the situation deteriorated in the summer of SA 298, rumors began to spread of an insurrection plotted by the Berskin chieftains. Aware that he lacked the manpower and resources to suppress a general rising of the tribes, Jeryme decided after an emergency council with the March-Lords to order the arrest of the Berskin chieftains. The Berskins reacted first by massacring the party sent to seize their leaders and then storming Merestrung, slaughtering Jeryme's men and dismantling the fort. Bands of Berskins, driven into a frenzy, then rampaged across the Aranieul valley for several days, burning a number of villages before the chieftains restored order.

Except for foraging parties, the Berskins remained in their encampments for several weeks after the initial incident, sending a delegation to negotiate with Lord-Warden Jeryme. Rather then consider the Berskin's modest terms, however, Jeryme sent Staffhalse Mangus of Northtown with a small column to put down the Berskins rebellion. Marching south along the river, Mangus's host was ambushed at Middlemere and utterly annihilated by a Berskin army under Logen Blackdon; Mangus, as well as most of his men, were killed. This battle, as well as the now-critical food shortage in the encampment, finally forced the tribes, led by Landen Carelain, to declare open revolt against the Crown and move east into the Northern plains. Some 150,000 Berskins crossed the Aranieul in late August and poured across the Middefold, though they refrained from plundering the countryside and adopted a non-hostile attitude towards civilians as they marched.

The Emperor and his councillors, recognizing the threat posed by the Berskins, hastily mobilized their northern vassals. The Middefoldian staffhalses raised their fyrds and amassed an army at Caister; a large contingent of the Imperial Army of the Frontier was concentrated at Sternard for a march south, and a request for military support was sent to King Ran Arloginian of Kinnofold, who, invested in a campaign on Gathisle, was only able to spare a few hundred knights. Despite talk of joining the Army of the Frontier and the Middefoldian army, this was never done and Staffhalse Rodgel Tarry, commanding the levy, marched in late September to face the slow-moving Berskins alone, engaging them in the battle of Keln. In the first field battle of the war, the Middefoldian army was put to rout and destroyed: Tarry and two thousand of his men were slain, the Middefoldian nobility was decimated, and the bodies of the fallen fyrdmen replenished the Berskins' supply of arms and armor. Following their triumph, the Berskins stormed the nearby city of Caister, where, believing the danger of attack to have passed and the war to be all but over, they assumed an eased stance and prepared for winter.

The Berskins brief repose was broken by a sudden attack from Morgen Cleland's Army of the Frontier, which, having force-marched from Sternard, exploited the Berskin's lack of preparation and fell on their unsuspecting encampment in mid-October. The Imperials opening attack killed many Berskins in their encampment and drove them into the city, but once the battle shifted to the town's tight stone streets their offensive stalled. The arrival of a column of Berskin cavalry late in the day nearly turned the tide of battle in favor of the Berskins, but the Imperials were able to hold-out in the Berskins former encampment until night. Severe casualties and the threat of further Berskin reinforcements forced the Imperials to yield the field, which they did on October 28th after a negotiated settlement allowed them to retire from the encirclement with arms and standards. Both sides incurred heavy casualties; some forty-five hundred Berskins, including chieftain Maege Darrin and many civilians, were killed, as well as some three thousand Imperials. Reduced to half of their original strength, Cleland led his mauled command to Grenard, from where, after a brief period of recovery, they marched south in the spring of SA 299 to suppress unrest in the Hearth, leaving the Middefold abandoned and vulnerable.

SA 299-300: Height
The Battle of Caister precipitated a serious shift in the nature of the War. With many of their chieftains slain in the battle and the scope of the conflict now clear, the Berskins consolidated and declared Landen Carelain their king, coronating him in late SA 298. Further, the ferocity of the battle and the deaths of many Berskin civilians brought an end to the Berskin's policy of non-hostility, and they now descended across the Middefoldian plains to raid and pillage, laying waste to the countryside. The devastation inflicted on the plains was severe, with a survey conducted several years after the war indicating that some some three hundred villages and one hundred-fifty halses were destroyed or abandoned during the course of the Berskin's initial deluge.

The Empire's response to the onslaught was confused and uncoordinated. Staffhalder Walther Lancercost of Langcaste raised his fyrds and remanned the passes across the Spyne but was unwilling to march beyond the mountains, while at Sternard, Lord-Warden of the March Symon Jeryme assembled a mis-match army which included tribal auxiliaries, Imperial garrison troops and Marchmen. In order to receive a detachment of Imperial troops from the Emperor, Jeryme was forced to re-affirm his allegiance to the Crown, aligning his army with the Arloginian faction in the civil war which had engulfed the South. At Stromkrop, the Imperials hastily assembled from the Army of the Frontier and the fyrds of Harerok a fresh host with which to take the field against the Berskins, with Prince Mathieu assuming nominal command.

This second Imperial expedition took the field in early August and quickly sought to trap the Berskins between themselves and Jeryme's Army of the North, which began a simultaneous advance from Sternard. The Berskins, however, were able to evade the Imperials, whose advance was slowed by their large artillery train and Mathieu's personal baggage, until early September, when, having concentrated their forces, they prepared to give battle near the town of Brielle. The Berskins, well-disciplined and prepared, broke the Imperial center and routed their army in a brief but decisive battle. Prince Mathieu was wounded and captured, some eight thousand Imperials were slain and captured, and the entire Imperial artillery train fell into Berskin hands. Once again, Morgen Cleland was forced to lead a humiliating retreat south, re-assembling whatever remained of the army and retiring to Stromkrop. The bulk of the Imperial expedition, however, was scattered across the countryside, with most either deserting or joining the swelling Reamagude bands that had begun to rove the plains. The Northerners, their allies routed, aborted their brief sortie and returned to Sternard.

The year ended with the completion of the Berskin invasion of the Middefold. Having captured the Imperial siege train, the tribals were now able to widen their onslaught to fortified towns and castles, sacking the holdfasts that had resisted their initial deluge in a raiding campaign led by Logen Blackdon. King Landen I pursued Cleland with a large host, chasing him as far south as Stromkrop and leaving a swathe of destruction in his wake before, unable to make an impression on the fortress, they sacked Fair Harbor and retired back into the Middefold. Here they besieged Grenard until December, when, joined by Blackdon's forces, they stormed the city and settled into winter quarters behind it's walls.

SA 300-301: Endgame
With the spring of SA 300 the Berskins once again reaved across the plains, looting and firing villages as far north as the village of Sternard and once again provoking Lord-Warden Symon Jeryme into leading his army onto the plains, where he retook Cainraine and scattered many Berskin war-bands. The Berskins reformed under Logen Blackdon and in late July attacked the Northerners near the village of Romsey. The result was a bloody draw: both sides lost some two thousand men and, believing the battle to be lost, retired from the field with the onset of night. Nonetheless, heavy losses, over-extended supply lines and a lack of a decisive victory forced Jeryme to withdraw to his power-base at Sternard, where he remained inactive for the remainder of the year.

Simultaneously, King Landen led a Berskin column to the Spyne in an effort to break-through the mountain passes and invade the Langcastian plain. At First Watch, however, the Berskins were blocked by the well-equipped garrison of Staffhalse Jesper Bowden. After several days of failed assaults that left the pass blanketed with Berskin dead, Landen aborted the invasion and retired back to the Middefold, where his bands resumed their raiding. By this time, however, the Middefold had been thoroughly exhausted, and loot began to dry up, leaving the Berskin's disillusioned and starving.

SA 301 saw several major shifts in Westreach's political landscape. First, the death of Emperor Sirius V in late SA 300 resulted in the ascension of Emperor Robyn I and the defection of Harrison Cailain to the Haladrians, allowing their escape from Rottgut and the continuation of the civil war. Second, the death of March-Lord Walter Saric prompted his son and Philip Haladrian's retainer Julian Saric to assume his seat; in a daring raid, Julian then attacked the encampment of the Army of the North, killing Jeryme, slaughtering his loyalists and assuming command. With the Army's allegiance now shifted to the Haladrians, Staffhalder Walther Lancercost finally crossed the Spyne with his fyrds and joined the Northerners at Sternard.

The Berskin situation deteriorated rapidly in SA 301 as the food situation became critical and disease spread in their already thinned ranks. The tribes began to splinter; after a dispute with Landen, chieftain Harlyn Aragmer defected with a large band of Berskins, leading them to the Rottmotte and securing a separate peace with the Imperials. This band would eventually evolve into the Berskantar, a separate Berskin kingdom based along the Rottmotte. Now seeking to end the war, Landen led the depleted tribes north, into the Marches, in the hopes of defeating the army of Lord-Warden Saric. At Horse Head Hill the two sides met in perhaps the fiercest battle of the war. In a day-long struggle the Berskins were finally defeated: King Landen I was felled by an arrow and some four thousand Northerners and five thousand Berskins were killed. The survivors, bloodied and outnumbered, were besieged in their encampment.

Aftermath
In the hopes of avoiding an extended siege, Saric, his army having sustained heavy losses in the battle, negotiated a pact with the remaining Berskins, now led by chieftain Logen Blackdon. In-exchange for being settled on the Aranieul and remaining a distinct ethnic group, the Berskins would execute Prince Mathieu, who was in their custody, and provided Saric with several thousand auxiliaries. Though Mathieu was able to escape, Saric nevertheless claimed he had been killed, and with the murder of Philip Haladrian in October Saric extended his own claim to the throne. Saric's Berskin auxiliaries would prove to give a good account of themselves in Saric's ensuing camaign, sustaining grievous losses and proving instrumental in Saric's victory at the Battle of the Burning Trees. Following this the auxiliaries, numbering less then two thousand, were discharged and allowed to return to their embattled people, who settled and assumed a high degree of autonomy in the Aranieul valley.

The War had wide repercussions for the entire region that continue to reverberate. The Middefold, which had formerly been known as the "Breadbasket of the Empire," would never recover it's agricultural and economic capacity from the Berskin depredations, instead slowly falling into decline and ruin until the Berskin reconstruction programs of the SA 330s. The displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom streamed to an already overpopulated and strained south as refugees, further contributed to the destabilization of the entire region.

Additionally, though the Imperial tribute system was nominally preserved by the end of the war, the fact that a group of tribes could revolt, devastate wide swathes of the Empire and still be allowed to settle as an semi-autonomous ethnic group within the Empire's borders shook Harerok's continental hegemony. In the years following the War, the Berskins would recover their strength, first under King Logen I and then under Harris I, remaining a tough adversary to the Empire. The Empire's relationship with her confederonds would never be the same after the war; within twenty years of Saric's Peace, Harerok would be sacked twice, the Empire would collapse, and a new political order would emerge in Westreach led by the Gailians and, ultimately, the Berskins.