The Sundering of Equestria - A Future History

Siege of Manehatten Part 3 – The General’s Martyrdom

Whilst the siege engineers went back to setting up their trebuchets, and eventually commencing the bombardment of the city centre, General Nightstrider (bound and disarmed) was brought before Legate Sternum.

In his command tent outside the city, the Legate made a speech, recorded for posterity by Diamond Heart, in front of his commanders and his defeated foe. The account that follows was widely believed at the time by the ponies of the Republic as actually happening, but only recently has it been confirmed as fact.

“Nightstrider. At last. You and your pesky Brigades have toyed with me ever since I led this army over the Crystal Mountains and into Equestria proper. You have been a thorn in my side for far too long - to pull you out, I even diverted my entire army to attack this Celestia-forsaken city. And now, at last, I have the great satisfaction of finally meeting my nemesis in the flesh.”

“Your cause is lost, Nightstrider. Even now our siege engines are raining down death and destruction upon your last stronghold in Manehatten. Then the pattern will be repeated, until every last town, village, and hamlet has been returned to the leadership of the true ruler of Equestria.”

According to Diamond Heart, Nightstrider muttered something at this point, but nopony other than Pilum Sternum heard him.

“No, I don’t think so. Miss Heart, make a note; when we return to Canterlot in triumph after this victory, I want Nightstrider here wrapped in chains, pulled behind my chariot. Any other prisoners we take will follow behind their beloved ‘Hero of the Republic’.”

“Fellow commanders, mark this day! For this is the day the war turns against the New Lunar Republic. With this so-called ‘hero’ in chains and paraded before the Princess, the common ponies of Equestria will know, as Nightstrider now knows, that their cause is lost.”

“They will return to the light, and then everything… everything will go back to the way it used to be.”

At this point, Diamond Heart records, Nightstrider broke free of his bonds and – with a cry of “Long Live the Republic!” – stabbed the Legate in the throat with a knife he’d previously hidden. As Sternum collapsed to the ground, “gurgling his last”, the Legate’s bodyguards leapt into action and cut off Nightstrider’s head with a single sweep of their halberds. The two acrimonious enemies died within seconds of each other.

The knowledge of this event somehow leaked out to the War Council of the Republic (even today historians are not sure exactly how, but the general consensus was that some kind of magic was involved), and General Nightstrider – Hero of the Republic – became the revolution’s most popular martyr.

The impact of Legate Sternum’s death on the battle, however, was negligible. His second-in-command, a relatively inexperienced mare named Cinnamon Pearl, immediately took command. She and her new subordinates merely followed Sternum’s existing plan for the remainder of the battle.

Meanwhile, General Brownstocking was watching, powerless, as yet more missiles rained down upon his severely-confined forces, which, having taken shelter behind Manehatten’s final defensive cordon, were easy targets for the Celestian artillery. Unable to counter-attack without risking close-combat with the Crystal Warriors, things for Brownstocking looked bleak. Victory for Old Equestria, it seemed, was assured.

It was at this point, however, on the evening of the second day of the battle, that the ships of the United Griffon Assault Fleet became visible on the horizon.

Siege of Manehatten Part 4 – The Griffons Arrive

While previous historians have put the Griffon Kingdoms fleet at around 50 strong (with each ship capable of holding around 600 soldiers, that gives us a total of 30,000 soldiers), and composed entirely of the enormous ‘Lion-O-War’ wooden frigates, recent evidence suggests otherwise. In fact, only around 40 of the fleet’s ships were Lions-O-War, giving a much more likely estimate of 24,000 troops. This mistake in numbers seems to have arisen from the omission in many of the sources of the 10 or so empty ‘Yawners’.

Yawners (instrumental to the following account, as well as to the Griffon’s other naval ventures) were small but heavily-armoured metal ships that were pulled along by the larger wooden frigates, as they had to rely on a primitive fuel-pump engine that could only power the craft for a few minutes. The Yawners would be empty of soldiers until the fleet neared its objective, when troops would fly down from the frigate and fill up the closest metal boat. These craft were called Yawners because they were designed to beach themselves on an enemy coastline, before their prows would open (like a giant beak ‘yawning’) and disgorge the soldiers contained within, who would then commence the assault.

In dual command of the assault fleet was a naval commander, the colourful Rear-Admiral Huette, and a separate commander for the land-assault force. This second Griffon was none other than the famous Baron Von Clawtoven. Well-known nowadays as one of the Sundering of Equestria’s great personalities (and often erroneously portrayed in films and books as a dastardly, moustache-twirling villain), this was the battle in which the unconventional Von Clawtoven made a name for himself.

The United Griffon Assault Fleet finally reached Manehatten on the dawn of the third day of the siege. The centre of the city had been suffering from the Old Equestrians’ trebuchet bombardment on-and-off for almost the entire night, but the resolute soldiers of the Republic still held onto most of the seaward half of the city. They were therefore horrified to find that, as the sun rose, they began to be bombarded from the ocean.

The few buildings in Manehatten that were thus far undamaged were located mainly around the docks, and it was these buildings that suffered the most from the Griffon fleet’s cannon-fire. Although mostly unoccupied, the few soldiers and spotters residing in these buildings were soon torn apart by the Griffons’ new explosive cannonballs, or crushed to death when the building they were taking shelter in collapsed on top of them. After merely half-an-hour of this, the area immediately around the docks had been effectively flattened into a kind of ‘beach’ composed of rubble.

General Brownstocking and his commanders, holed up in a reinforced bunker below the Manehatten Spire, weren’t sure how to react to this. The Celestians might cease their bombardment and begin their attack any moment, but now the General had to fight a battle on two fronts. Brownstocking hastily ordered his few remaining precious reinforcements to the docks, to try to fight off the inevitable seaborne assault. Sources indicate that he sent only two or three thousand troops to do this.

An oft-discounted source that has been recently proven to be genuine and of great importance, tells us that General Brownstocking and his commanders had known about the approaching fleet since it had appeared on the horizon the previous day. There is no doubt that they knew the fleet was Griffon; endless numbers of sources can confirm that every griffon frigate proudly and constantly displayed the flag of the Twelve Kingdoms from their highest mast. This then begs the question – why did the Republic commanders not react to their approach?

One often put-forward argument is that Brownstocking simply did not have enough troops with which to deal with this new threat. After all, he was already under attack from the land – but the lack of any activity at all towards seeing off the griffons seems to discount this. In fact, until the Griffon fleet began its bombardment, Brownstocking hadn’t given any orders relating to the approaching fleet. The conclusion drawn, therefore, is that Brownstocking and his commanders identified the approaching fleet as hailing from the Griffon Kingdoms, and then simply discounted it. This would not be the last time that the Equestrians’ inexplicable disregard for the Griffons would lead to their downfall.

Siege of Manehatten Part 5 – Dual Assaults

Mere minutes after the Griffon bombardment ended, the Old Equestrian’s bombardment ended as well. The forces of the New Lunar Republic were therefore in the ill-fated position of being under simultaneous assault by two different forces from two different directions – or at least they were, for about an hour.

The Crystal Warriors’ assault quickly overran the revolutionaries’ already weakened defences and, sources tell us, rapidly slaughtered the Republican forces. Although they put up a much better fight than they had at the Battle of Canterlot, the revolutionaries remained no match for the highly-trained Old Equestrian soldiers at close range. Within minutes, the attacker’s vanguard had reached the defenders’ last line of barricades, right in front of the Manehatten Spire.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the Griffons’ Yawners had been dispatched. The metal craft smashed their way through the dock’s meagre flood defences with their powerful (but short-lived) engines and beached themselves on the rubble at the edge of the city, just as they’d been designed to do. The Yawners’ speed and thick metal plating proved resistant to the Republican forces’ Starbeam and Multibeam rifles, and every one of the ten assault craft made it onto the ‘beach’ undamaged. The first action of the Griffon soldiers, once the Yawners had opened up, was to march out and release two timed volleys of musket-fire into the defenders.

This devastating tactic of ranked musket-fire, combined with the shock of the assault – nopony in Equestria had ever seen or heard of an amphibious attack like this before – quickly scattered the revolutionaries, who fled in a disorganised fashion back into the ruined city. The griffons, at the urging of Baron Von Clawtoven (who, in true griffon tradition, was in the front lines as part of the initial assault wave), pressed their advantage and continued forwards. A messenger was sent back to the fleet to tell the Rear Admiral of the Baron’s success and to tell him to send in the second and third waves – troops that would enter the city, unprotected, via the air, and further wooden boats that would carry the griffon’s heavy cannon to shore.

The two forces – Old Equestrians and Griffons – met one another in the assault on Manehatten Spire. With the Republican forces all but annihilated by the force of the dual assaults, Manehatten quickly became a battleground between the waves of Griffon Kingdoms’ soldiers attacking from the sea, and the slowly-advancing blocks of Crystal Warriors advancing from the land.

Although the Crystal Warriors remained superior in close-combat – many units of griffon musketeers found themselves torn to pieces by the second or third rank of their armoured foes before they could reload for another volley – ultimately it was the advanced technology of the griffons and the rapidity of their assault that won the day. Though only a few hundred of them were present in the battle (different sources give different numbers), the griffon’s Flamenwerfers were decisive in destroying the tightly-packed formations of Crystal Warriors, and sending most who saw them fleeing (considering the harsh training and tough dispositions of the average  Celestian soldier, this was no mean feat). Similarly, the five Cannonade Carts that were present in the battle, although not credited with many kills, were certainly terrifying to the Crystal Warriors, who had never seen anything like them before, and appeared to be utterly impervious to all of their weapons.

After a few hours of bloody fighting, the Old Equestrians were in full retreat. The new Legate, Cinnamon Pearl, ordered her few remaining reserve units (the only units still at full strength) to form a rearguard to hold off the advancing griffons while she lead the rest of the army away. Amongst these reserves were the remaining Wonderbolts – it is generally believed that Legate Pearl was unaware that she was sending in these elite and indisputably irreplaceable flyers.

In one of the most poetic moments of the war, the few hundred remaining Wonderbolts made their stand in the air, above the 1,000 or so Crystal Warriors chosen to fight on the ground; modern estimates tell us that they faced a griffon vanguard of around 8,000 troops, including at least 50 Flamenwerfers and two Cannonade Carts, and led in person by Baron Von Clawtoven. Nevertheless, these few brave souls fought for over an hour against an overwhelming enemy force. By the end of this valiant rearguard action, almost 90% of them were dead, or at least in no condition to continue fighting. The remaining ten percent were Crystal Warriors that, upon seeing that they’d fought on long enough for the rest of their army to get away, reluctantly surrendered.

The Wonderbolts were wiped out. Their leader, several sources can confirm, died in personal combat with Baron Von Clawtoven. The Griffon Kingdoms commander would later honour this unnamed fighter in his memoirs, describing her as “the bravest foe I have ever faced, and most loyal to their cause”. Von Clawtoven personally ensured that she and her companions were buried with full honours after the battle, much to the disgruntlement of the Baron’s superiors.

At this point in his memoirs, the Von Clawtoven also makes a cryptic reference to an “Element” being lost in this same rearguard action, but whether this refers to the griffon’s losses or the size of the enemy force they were fighting is unknown. There are no other sources that pertain to this, written about or during the Siege, and thus the Baron's claim is impossible to corroborate, even if modern historians actually knew what it meant. It is, as with prior and subsequent mentions of ‘Elements’, a complete mystery.

Siege of Manehatten Part 6 – Losses and Impact

With the forces of Old Equestria in full retreat back towards the capital, and the last remains of the previous occupiers wiped out (General Brownstocking and his remaining troops at the Manehatten Spire chose to fight to the death rather than surrender, for reasons that remain unknown), the armies of the Griffon Kingdoms were the undisputed victors of this monumental three-day battle. Despite the devastation done to the city, Manehatten’s docks were still in mostly-working order, and the greater part of the griffon fleet unloaded there. Three ships were sent back to the Griffon Kingdoms to report on their victory and to request reinforcements to take the whole of Equestria. Manehatten would act as the griffon’s primary port and the entry-place for their reinforcements for the rest of the war.

The estimated casualties for the Griffon Kingdoms are very low indeed. While some sources claim that their losses were as low as a hundred, more reliable evidence puts their dead and wounded at around 2,100-2,500; still extremely light for the intensity of the battle. Most historians credit this to the suddenness of the griffon assault, and the terror their weapons caused amongst the enemy ranks.

The Celestian forces suffered significantly higher losses but, thanks to the accurate record-keeping of Diamond Heart, we now know the precise figures. Of the 27,000 soldiers that marched on Manehatten, exactly 9,783 are recorded as killed or missing in action (almost certainly, this number also covers those taken prisoner). This is including the Crystal Warriors who fought in the rearguard, but not the Wonderbolts, whose exact numbers remain unknown. It is generally believed that most of these casualties were suffered during the final assault on the New Lunar Republic defences, and consequent griffon attack, in the latter stages of the battle.

The Republican forces suffered by far the highest losses of the battle. Not only were both their commanders killed, but almost their entire army was wiped out, trapped as it was between the two attacking forces. Of their starting number of approximately 19-20,000 troops, an estimated 1,050 soldiers survived. This figure is an amalgamation of the numbers of the only two known surviving groups of soldiers; the 550 survivors from the Nightstrider Brigades, and the 600 revolutionaries in the bridge’s guardhouses, who made their escape under the cover of the Old Equestrians’ chaotic retreat. Among these, as we now know, was the soldier who would later become feared as High Marshal Moonlight Sonata; it is believed that her inability to influence the outcome this battle had a significant impact on her personality.

This unexpected result of the Siege of Manehatten, and the entry of the Griffon Kingdoms into the war, forced both Princess Celestia and her government, and the War Council of the Republic, to make a number of changes to their armies and plans.

Perhaps stung by the failure of her forces’ offensive, Celestia made the decision to withdraw her forces even more into the cities still under her control; she ordered new defences to be built, and existing defences to be reinforced. The infrastructure, administration and agriculture of these tightly-packed zones were even more rigidly controlled, to ensure maximum productivity in all areas of Old Equestrian society, at the cost of all remaining civil liberties.

Despite this second catastrophic defeat, and the emergence of a new foe, the Council of the New Lunar Republic resolved to fight on, inspired by Nightstrider’s heroic sacrifice. In response to the heavy armour of their Celestian foes, and as-yet unconfirmed reports of armoured vehicles being used by the Griffon forces, the Council diverted more of their resources towards producing new weaponry. The most successful and widespread of these new weapons was known as the Eclipse Hoof-Cannon; this powerful but slow-firing gun is considered historically to have been the epitome of magic-crystal-powered technology. Small numbers of them became available to the Republic’s troops at the beginning of 1039LB, along with the decidedly-superior Type 3 version of the Starbeam rifle, which was also designed to deal with small numbers of heavily-armoured targets.

All three of these factions – Old Equestria, the New Lunar Republic, and the Griffon Kingdoms – realised shortly after the battle that, in order to have the best chance of winning this war, they would need an ally. After the Siege of Manehatten, there was no way any of these three sides could have allied with one another, so the only and most obvious choice for an alliance was, of course, the World Empire.

With a group of Republican diplomats already awaiting their arrival in a town near to Horseshoe Bay, the Griffons and Celestians both dispatched their own diplomats to the area. Under a white banner of temporary truce, these three delegations waited for the arrival of the Imperial expeditionary force, and prepared their arguments. The World Empire’s decision in this forthcoming conference would have an enormous impact on the war – but, as it turned out, not in a way any of the delegates could have imagined.