Thoirazonan War

The Thoirazonan War was a major armed conflict, leading up to the creation of the modern Republic of Ihazon and Thoiria as we know it today.

Cause and Build-up

Since its establishment in 1961, the relationship between Thoiria and Ihazon had been strenuous at best and downright hostile at worst. This would only continue to escalate, and many deemed it inevitable that the tension would eventually burst, causing a conventional war between the nations. Politicians and media expressed great concern about the ramifications of such a war, pointing to how dangerous the same people who committed the 1960 Parliament Coup would be as an army backed by a whole nation.
However, the sentiment among the people would become increasingly in favour of war, with claims that Thoiria posed an existential threat to the nation of Ihazon..

This was not lost on the political scene of the country. One man in particular built his entire identity on this very sentiment: Senator Shrove Pulpaclean.
In 1981, in what opponents described as "fearmongering", Pulpaclean ran a campaign dedicated to "deal with the Thoirian threat". While adamant that he would not be instigator of such a war, he claimed the neighbouring country would soon be the one attacking Ihazon, and as such he would make the country ready for immediate retaliation.

His campaign was undoubtedly helped by two events.
Firstly, from 1961 onwards, Kemur had grown from being an already significant trading town to a city-state whose neutrality between the nations acted both as a deterrence against escalation as well as a vested interested to obtain control over it. In addition, from the latter half of the 1970s, Kemur had also started expansive mining and quarry projects that had significantly boosted its economic output. Moreover, rumours had spread about a potential oil well being hidden underneath the dry sandlands of Kemur. With both nations relying on their oil supply from Radosis and Tekkea, they had a very clear economic benefit from gaining controlling of this city.

Secondly, in 1981, Thoiria started the construction of its first nuclear power plant outside of Landesgarten.
This project's existence, while under strict supervision from The Atomic Council to ensure it would not create atomic weapons, nonetheless were as if not only wood was added to the fire, but straight up gasoline. It wouldn't be long before Pulpaclean used this to further stir up the flame of the people in his campaign.
Indeed, later the same year, Pulpaclean would be elected Chancellor of Ihazon.

The Beginning of the War

In a cabaret in Kemur at June 30th, 1982, as the popular Thoirian band Song Wives stepped up on the scene to perform, the band would produce a multitude of machine guns and shortly after rallied up all Ihazonan citizens in the room to swiftly execute them. This would become known as the Night of Song Wives
The nation of Ihazon was shocked. War was now inevitable.

Ihazonan troops were soon sent to occupy the city. Before the direct attack, a multitude of loyalists from Kemur joined the cause. However, upon arriving in the city, they immediately were laid under fire by a combined infantry force of Thoirians and Thoirian loyalists from Kemur, who had already taken a foothold of the city due to their close proximity.
Ihazonan forces pressed on, but had to eventually fall back and set up a defensive perimeter outside the city. Focus had then become to prevent a Thoirian invasion, a threat that seemed all too real amidst the chaos.

That year it was an especially cold winter. From the snow fell in November, a standstill evolved that locked the sides in time. Both sides experienced trouble with vehicles breaking down from the cold. However, while forces stationed inside the city of Kemur were well fed with rations from Landesgarten, the Ihazonan defensive perimeter was far from the capital. The closest settlement, Water Woods, was small, and had their already minor farms suffer from the winter, leaving no surplus for a large military army.

In February 1983, a fleet of steel would cover the sky of Kemur. Ihazon's fleet of bomber planes, while small, was enough to wreak havoc on the city. Bombs were primarily focused on civilian structures, showing a clear expectation that Ihazon would soon take control over the industrial facilities of the city.
The city's centre along with many of the Thoirian forces' foothold were decimated, and they were forced to withdraw. After the continuous carpet of bombs seized in April, Ihazonan forces moved in to take control of what was left of the city.

As a counter-measure, Thoirians set up a wall of anti-aircraft weaponry along what was once the border between Thoiria and Kemur in an expectations of having their capital soon acted upon. At the same time, their own forces quickly adopted a more guerrilla-style warfare as instead of concentrating force on attacking the city, they instead sent covert squads during night time to commit sabotage, targeting both vehicles and the industrial facilities of the city.

In June, Ihazonan forces attempted to move ahead of the city towards the Thoirian border but was met with heavy resistance.
In an attempt to break the stalemate, in August Ihazon deployed bombers to break the perimeter. Oblivious to the wall of anti-aircraft guns that had been well hidden in the foliage of the Thoirian border, the planes took heavy fire and many were shot down.
The rest of the year was spent attempting to root out the AA weaponry, both through infantry and with fighter jets, with little success.

After yet another winter had settled in 1984, work began to build a military airstrip closer to the border, as the long distance between the military base outside Tinville and the border made attacking difficult. With difficult terrain and frequent sabotages from Thoirians, however, this would prove a challenge.

End of the War

Until 1989, little progress were made by either side.

The motivation to continue the war slowly deteriorated among both sides, but especially the Ihazonan, as the cost of it continued to rise, both monetary and in terms of lives. Many started seeing it was a futile endeavour, fuelled only by the principle of "punishing" the instigator of the armed conflict, of which both sides claimed innocence of.

However, in March 1989, in a twist of events, evidence is found among a deep-running conspiracy within the Ihazonan cabinet, who had suspended all elections and declared an emergency situation as long as the war lasted, that the instigating event that had triggered the war--the Night of Song Wives--had been staged by Ihazon.
Attempting to contain this information would be impossible and the nation was soon divided into fury, among those who saw this as an act of high treason, and those who had seen it justified, claiming it "was only a matter of time" before war would happen.

In a desperate attempt to maintain power, the cabinet, under leadership of Shrove Pulpaclean, attempted to hinder the senate from stopping the war--effectively attempting a coup.
However, it would be to no avail.

Among the Ihazonan forces, upon getting news of this, morale would significantly drop and parts of their forces would of their own regard lay down their weapons and refuse to continue the fight. A split among the officers arose, of those wanting to surrender and those refusing to.
As this suddenly turned into an armed conflict amongst the Ihazonan army, the Senate became desperate to prevent this meaningless bloodshed. It was then that Togfan, who had not been directly involved in politics the last few decades, offered to establish an unofficial emergency cabinet to deal with the situation. The majority of the Senate hesitantly agreed.

Her first act was to issue a surrender and swiftly delivered this message to the front, managing to quell large parts of the unrest only days after it had started. She had allegedly walked up to the Thoirian forces on her own to deliver the surrender personally, and witnesses describe her as "literally stopping bullets mid-air" and "walking through the hellfire as if it was nothing". Thoiria immediately agreed to aa ceasefire and to negotiate the conditions of a surrender.
An emergency meeting with representatives from both nations were held in the ruins of Kemur shortly after. There, Togfan laid down the evidence of the Night of Song Wives being staged. Together with the sight of the destruction both had taken apart of, she urged both sides to calmly solve this and vow to a cooperation between the nations.
Thoirians, who had indubitably caused less of the destruction of the war, felt it unfair that they were treated as the same. To recompense this, Togfan vowed to demilitarise Ihazon--a move that shocked Ihazonan officers--and to restructure their political system to avoid this happening again. She stressed that Thoiria was not obliged to demilitarise and could keep their forces, so long as they did not invest in further technologies such as marine and aerial warfare.
Both nations agreed and the war was officially over the 28th of March, 1989.

Aftermath

In light of the conspiracy of Shrove Pulpaclean, he and his cabinet was arrested and put to trial during the summer of 1989. When arrested, he had allegedly stated that he "was" the Senate.
During his trial, he first feigned ignorance of the Night of Song Wives. However, he soon went on to say "they had it coming", and that "it was inevitable", as well as stating that he had "played them all like a damn fiddle". When prompted upon what reasons he had for the war, he stated "war is a pathway to many economic miracles some would consider... supernatural", and, again, that "they had it coming." It was unsure whether this relentless fury extended solely to Thoiria as a nation, or also to the band Song Wives, who he seemed very pleased to hear had collapsed afterwards.

He and his whole cabinet bar four members were sentenced to death, with the remaining four being sentenced to 40 years in prison after cooperating.
Before he was hanged in Trondheim in October, 1989, he had allegedly laughed frantically and shouted repeatedly "I did it", "I'm guilty", and "the demons told me to".

As promised, Togfan would, with the majority of the Senate, demilitarise the country. More specifically, the army was officially absolved, but many of its previous soldiers and equipment were given control of to VERN, who gained a contract to become the nation's reserve military force.
In addition, Togfan also formally restructured the political system.
The Senate was replaced with the Parliament, the Chancellor with the President of Ihazon, and she also established a closed party list system with proportionate representation of the various states of Ihazon, split into contingencies, allowing the interests of the people to be represented through multiple parties having seats in the Parliament, instead of the traditional strict split between the sitting government and the collective opposition that had been the case up until then.

While her changes were controversial, they all ended up taking place, and the modern Republic of Ihazon was born together with an era vowed to peace.