Ærin Anorien Bespaecasi Belaedari. "The Tide to the Water Line." The War to End War: 1898-1910, 2nd Ed. Tome II: 1898. Annuminas: Winoedund College Press. 1928. Print.
Chapter the first, the Tide to the Water Line.
With the great powers of Ennorath and Pelagea at war, the earth trembled as the mighty Haradrim engines of war leveled the ancient city of Annuminas, destroying the very campus this history has been written in. During those first hours of war, more shells rained upon the millennia old "New City" than had ever fallen in any armed conflict ever before in history. More lives were lost than had been lost in even the worst battles of the Amerikan Civil War, for this was a metropolis of a million souls, and half again as many people, and there was no warning. However, all this carnage did not prevent the Numen Guard from blasting the bridges as the Haradrim skirmishers crossed to scout for the main host. In military history therefore, the famed bombardment fades to the irrelevancy of a pebble so to learn more of it a reader would be advised to review Tome XIV of this history.
With no bridges across the An, the Haradrim Host advanced to the southeast. The eighteenth century fortifications of the northern quarter of Eldalondë were as minor an impediment to the Haradrim as a raspberry bush is to a charging boar. Within two weeks the Haradrim standing army had crossed Eldalondë province and was facing the Eluvataran First Corps entrenched seven kilometers inside the central province of Anor. This was the Haradrim Empire's chance to win the war, and they were prepared to make the attempt.
It is important to realize that the so-called Haradrim Host was hardly Haradrim at all. Of the eighteen divisions present at the Celowindecoewar (Cliff forest) battle, only three were reliable homeland divisions. Seven were [wiki]Suveri[/wiki] levies, and four from the [wiki]Gaean[/wiki] provinces. The remaining four were ianisari, corrupt and therefore ill-equipped. Against the outnumbered [wiki]Edain[/wiki] army however, this host was entirely sufficient. The shallow trenches dug by the Eluvataran Army proved no cover at all against artillery, and the defensive lines broke once the advancing enemy reached them. Knowing the battle was lost, Lieutenant-General SulBenn ordered a retreat. Casualties were severe and morale was abysmal, but improved greatly when the story of Captain Celar Ilium's 192nd Company's daring counterattack became known...
14:23 November 25, 1898; 192nd Company, not far from the An
Celar stared blankly at the smoking crater in front of him, at private Retori, sitting in front of it suddenly silent. He could reach out and touch it.. Mechanically, his hand reached to Retori's neck. Celar jolted back to awareness as the information that he felt no pulse shattered his reverie. He screamed aloud, "OUT OF THE TRENCHES, THEY HAVE OUR RANGE!"
The first sergeant merely shouted the same command, avoiding an unmanning shriek like the captain’s, with expletives decorating the nouns. Glancing at the crater, the sergeant waved the men forward. Celar opened his mouth to gainsay this order, but he closed it as he realized the crater was in fact on the back side of the trench, and the nearly as destructive near-misses had all been behind them.
The decimated company stepped out onto the recently cleared field. Celar sighted a densely wooded hillock just left of center along the tree line and pointed to it. “In there, they can’t see us but we’ll see them coming.”
For several long minutes the company crouched the woods and watched as the trench they’d spent yesterday digging was ravaged by shell after exploding shell. Then, the shells started falling on the near side. Swiftly realizing the change did not bode well for their position, Celar responded with new orders. “Forward!!”
But the company was not fated to leave the hillock. As they began their descent, they bumped into janissaries making the ascent. For a second and a half, mutual confusion reigned. Then, the the forest was filled with the deafening roar of volley after volley of rifle fire. For three minutes, the carnage continued uninterrupted. Then, the remains of the unlucky ianisari platoons fell back in a rout.
Celar was ecstatic, seizing the ornate Haradrim battle standard which had been dropped in the maelstrom and waving it in triumph. He turned to review his company, and saw that where this morning he had led two hundred of the King’s finest (soon may he return), he was now the intrepid officer in charge of seventy odd soldiers, some fifty wounded, and six dozen corpses. As if to underscore the calamity, a runner from SulBenn’s headquarters seized a tree to steady himself and breathe. “The Lieutenant-General instructs all forces to fall back. We’ve lost ground everywhere and must save the army.” He paused. “It took me a while to find you. The other companies of this battalion are probably clearing the crest of the big ridge by now.”
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With the first corps prudently retreating, the Haradrim host resumed its apparently unstoppable advance. Another two weeks saw the the penetration of the province of Romenna. The Eluvataran Army continued to retreat, as though they were squirrels and the Haradrim foxes. The Eluvatarans had devised a strategy, however. A strategy which the Haradrim were unable to defeat.
The tides of war reached the waterline of the ship of state, and the Haradrim host reached the greatest line of defense of the capital city of Romenna: the Water Line. For centuries, the Romennans had won their farms and their cities through unending combat with the merciless waters. The whole region about the city was a criss-cross of canals, dikes, and pumps. It did not take all that much ingenuity for King Boromir to construct the original Water Line, nor for generations thereafter to maintain and improve it.
As the clocks of Romenna struck midnight, opening the eleventh of December, seven specially chosen dikes blasted open as one. Nineteen pumps were deactivated, and twelve special pumps went to work. The waters were unleashed. Where there had been low farmland there would now be a series of ponds, blocking any advance. Synchronously, the now assembled Eluvataran First Army struck Haradrim positions at several higher areas, surrounding several battalions which were now abruptly cut off.
With impeccable timing, the Eluvatarans had broken the Haradrim Empire’s first, best hope for victory. With enormous losses, the Haradrim host could no longer advance, and the Eluvatarans were free to put in practice their revised doctrines of deep trenches with barrage bunkers in cleverly shaped designs and to complete the basic training of more newly mobilized recruits. No artillery bombardment could devastate the new Eluvataran lines as the Haradrim had at Celowindecoewar. Within days, the First Army would be joined by the new Fourth Army and the Haradrim force, difficult to supply and reinforce, would become outnumbered.