1776 – FOD Formation
As the Crusade faltered with defeats in Coftyr and their home, Fidwog redoubled her efforts to take advantage of Tok’s defeats and missteps. To this end, the Fraedarl Overseas Department was created. The FOD was designed to provide succor and armed assistance wherever the need might arise. Fidwoggian spies and asymmetrical warfare experts infiltrated a dozen kingdoms sabotaging vital Crusader wartime production, trained thousands of partisans in the art of guerilla warfare, and
generally caused trouble.
1778 – FOD Flexes Its Might
Throughout 1777 and 1778 the FOD had a hand in several major victories against the Crusade. Primary among these victories was the instigation and leading of the armed insurrection in southern Craesil in late 1777. Prior to this FOD victories had been small and easily ignored by the Crusade as well as the Fraedarl officer corps itself.
The continued field successes of the FOD lead to an increase in funding and the formalization of the department as a traditional military command. The FOD maintained its asymmetrical warfare specialists and other paramilitary experts while also gaining traditional military formations of divisional strength. By the end of 1778 the FOD command included nearly a dozen newly constituted infantry divisions with tractor and artillery divisions in the early stages of formation.
1780 – Envoy from Creevin
In 1780, the opportunity to really stretch its legs came to the Department when Arnyara launched its invasion of Creevin. An envoy from the Dowager of Creevin beseeched the king for assistance with the increasingly dire circumstances in Creevin. The Department, as it had become known, embarked onto civilian airships and steamers and steamed west; heavier equipment, and cavalry, rendezvoused with them en route.
The Department’s foray into Creevin marked the first time the FOD had deployed military rather than paramilitary forces outside of Fidwog’s borders. Projecting Fraedarl power at such distances were a new challenge for the FOD. In their negotiations with the Creevish envoys the FOD secured the promise of surplus material to utilize upon landing. Southern Creevin was still dotted with warehouses full of dusty equipment left over from the now defunct Grand Army of Kings.
1781 – The FOD Sees the Faerf
The Department’s initial landings were unopposed and allowed the Fidwoggers to set up hasty defensive works to meet the invading Easky forces in an effort to stop them at the Aeritini River basin.
As the defensive works were constructed support units took possession of many former Grand Army supply depots and vehicle yards. These depots were integral to the initial FOD landings as supply routes back to Fidwog proper and internal to Creevin were not yet established.
The shock and speed of the Easky mechanized attack nearly broke the FOD lines during the initial attack. As the battle evolved from an armored avalanche to a brutal melee near the banks of the Aeritini River casualties climbed into the tens of thousands on both sides. With little in the way of defensive works, or knowledge of the land and with no line of retreat for the Fidwogger forces the three day battle of the Aeritini is recorded as some of the fiercest fighting in the Crusader era. Many units on both sides had casualty rates over 80% and effectively ceased to exist. Dozens of the highest honors for bravery were awarded by Fidwogger and Easkovite commands as the sum of events was taken in in the days afterward with many dozens more events going with no recognition as there were no surviving witnesses or participants to record them for the ancestors.
As winter of 1781 the second FOD wave had landed on the Fidwogger beachhead and the first wave had established connections with Creevish watch and partisan forces. A third landing wave, still at sea, was imminent, however follow-on waves were in doubt. The situation in the east was dire. Craesil had erupted into civil war in an effort to throw off the Crusader yoke. The situation threatened to spill out of Craesil’s borders and into neighboring countries. On top of a need to bolster defenses on the home front Crusader submersible and aerocraft attacks on shipping across Lake Morandi had been more successful than anyone had anticipated and Prince-Syrnol Villym Fredderic, commanding the FOD in Creevin, had hidden this fact from his father, the king. The FOD was low on bullets, mothpaste and petrol. The Department was on the brink of being stranded in Creevin and forced to go to ground to fight alongside Creevish partisan units, abandoning their tractors and other support units for want of supplies. The Department needed a miracle…