Author's Note

The Equestrian Institute for History [EIH] has put together this video for the convenience of teachers. If you are a teacher, please have your students take out their copybooks, as this will be on the test.

Preparations [Equestria]

Year of our Diarchy,1198 ANM [After Nightmare Moon] Hearthswarming Eve.

It was four years since the war began, three years since the Equestrians had been pushed out of Saddle Arabia, two years since the Griffons entered the war, and one year since Equestria had began to fortify it's beaches.

Before Commander Irving Remmel "The forest wolf" took over, the beaches of Equestria were a mess. Namely, they had no defenses at all. And this was only a year after the failed Griffonese attack at the Pas de Canter. Yes, they had repulsed it, but this was just barely, and that was but a probe attack. So, Remmel had the beaches completely re-done. He had Czech Hedgehogs set up on the beaches, and on the main roads. He had landmines buried under the beaches, sea mines chained to the ocean floor, and the best reserves left in Equestria. He had artillery set up so that it went along the beach, extending it's range in case the beaches were stormed. And he had bunkers built, with enough spells and charms to survive a MOAB.

I mean, if it landed right on top of it then bye-bye bunker, but otherwise, It's all fine.

Now, there was one last thing that Remmel wanted to do, and that was call up the Armored divisions inland. But a rival general, Commander Heinrich Antlion, wanted the tanks to stay in Ponyville, where they would be safer from offshore bombardment and airstrikes, and could be easily mobilized against any attackers who made it inland. This was one argument that nobody could pull rank to solve, as they were the two theater commanders in charge of coastal defense, and the only people that outranked them were the princesses themselves. So, the issue was brought to the Canterlot court.

When I say it was brought, I mean a note was fire-breathed into Canterlot [Of fucking course Spike isn't the only one who can do that], brought into the mail room for aging, and lost in transit. [I never said that it went straight to Celestia. Only Spike can do that.] A month later, they tried again, this time using a Pegasus to fly it in. It was brought to a mail room for aging, lost, found, lost again, then found again in someone's sandwich, and brought to be given to the princess. It was promptly lost and found again in another sandwich, but this time it had two bites taken out of it and was covered in sandwich sauce.

Yet another month later, both theater commanders rode in to deliver the letter personally. It was taken, and after a few days, found in a horseshoe, with some lipstick smeared over it and a grocery list on the back. And bit a week later, the generals came back. This time, they didn't write a letter. Antlion and Remmel stormed into the palace and personally brought up the issue with the court. They said they would consider bringing it up to Celestia, forgot about it, and moved on to other things.

Canterlot was horribly inefficient at responding to ponies who weren't the mane six, and considering that these were two generals who NEEDED the princesses to help fix an issue, this was appalling. Eventually, Antlion and Remmel came to a agreement. A third of the armor in Ponyville was put under Remmel's command, who spread it around the beaches, a third was given to Antlion, who kept it in Ponyville to be mobilized in case of invasion, and a third was garrisoned permanently in Ponyville.

Now, this left nobody happy. Not Antlion, who wanted to have all the armor under his command, not Remmel, who wanted the tanks defending the beaches, and not Ponyville, who just wanted to be left alone, without high priority targets that the enemy would quite enjoy to firebomb. But, without intervention from Canterlot, this was possibly the best that they would get, and even with intervention from Canterlot, all that would happen is the division of the armor in Ponyville in-between the two commanders, which would probably please Ponyville, but both generals would still want that other half.

Then, Celestia, that magnificent bastard who's book I read, finally decided that NOW was good time to poke her nose into this situation, probably because one of the mane six complained about having soldiers and tanks there.

She looked at this and decided, No, nope. This is not working out. Now, this is a logical conclusion to draw. What she did to remedy this, however, was give Antlion control of the ALL the tanks, but give full control of the theater to Remmel. This was somehow WORSE than before, and now Antlion undermined the complaints of Ponyville's residents by putting ALL of the tanks there, thereby ensuring that Ponyville would get a nice present in the form of incendiary devices in the near future. And Remmel, without control of the tanks, had no tanks he could have easily respond to attacks. Ponyville was at least a day inland from the coast, and that was a day longer his men would have to hold off the griffons.

So, with two quibbling commanders in charge of the defense of Equestria, and no real system in place for said commanders to receive help from Canterlot, Celestia and Luna took, and I quote from a memo, a "Well Deserved Vacation."

Now, as bad a time as this was for a Royal vacation, This was an even worse time for a fault in Equestrian Weather prediction.

There was a fault in Equestrian weather prediction.

A rather large hurricane was spotted going north across the ocean, and its projected course was to the polar ice caps, meaning that no griffons would cross for a while.

This was, of course, wrong. The hurricane was already petering out, but they wouldn't know that, as it passed quite close to the Griffonese coast, and nobody volunteered to pass within range of the Griffish air patrols and AA fire to look at some stupid clouds and wind, which is quite ironic if you think about it, considering that in Equestria, Pegasai are ALL about controlling the weather for the government's uses.

Anyways, the Hurricane was gone, but nobody [In Equestria] knew that, the princesses were gone, and everybody [Including Gryphgen] knew that, and since it was so close to Christmas- err, I mean, Hearthwarming eve, Remmel and Antlion decided, feh, fuck it, and took leave to go home to their wives and children. And it was also Remmel's wife's birthday on Hearthswarming eve, and Remmel had to go home to cheat his wife out of a gift on her birthday.

But on Hearthswarming Day, as everything winded down, and Remmel settled into bed, there was an emergency Communique, from the Coastal Defence control in Baltimare.

The griffons had come.