Oustfest Massacre

The Oustfest Massacre[1] was the culmination of a conspiracy and putsch by the clique of nobles from the houses of Osman, Verion and the Simrani, supported by the majority of the Imperial Forces against Kaiser Dominus and the Imperial Government. As a consequence, the year 1644 became notorious as the Year of the Four Kaisers.

Putschists

The Putschists supported the efforts of Tokaray al-Osman to take power as Kaiser Aurangzeb II Steffki. The ringleaders of the Tokaray Putsch included Tokaray al-Osman, Ludovic Verion and Adam Ayreon-Kalirion. The plotters were motivated by a combination of personal grievances, ambitions and the ideological influence of Khanism and the Dark Orchid Society.

• House of Osman
• House of Verion
• House of Simrani
• Kingdom of Goldshire
• Ministry of Military Affairs
• Ministry of the Exterior
• Office of Bounties and Factorage
• Chamber of the Crypteia
• Shirekeep City Guard
• S.W.O.R.D.
• Jaysh al-Sathrati
• Amity
• Yardistan
• Iron Company / Blackstone
• Babkhi Civilians
• Western Armada
• Coastal Command
• Fighter Command
• Bomber Command
• Strike Command

Loyalist Forces

The Loyalist Forces supported Kaiser Dominus, who has been captured by the putschist group. The fight against the putsch was initially led by acting Squadron Leader Rhydian Fithen before a more prominent role was taken by the Minister of the Interior, Mira Octavius-Aryani, supported by the Prætor of the Landsraad, Fjǫrleif Llængjarla; and Shirekeep's Prefect, Audun Joel Ayreon-Kalirion.

• The Kaiser
• Imperial Household
• The Prefect of Shirekeep
• Ministry of the Interior
• Order of the Sentinels
• Order of Kampioens
• ESB-Jörmungandr Group
• Norse Civilians
• Landsraad
• Prætor

Faced by an untenable position in the capital, the Prefect and the Praetor had withdrawn to their estates in Elwynn to raise their regiments of yeomanry and to gather together supports and Imperial Electors who had escaped from the city. Their objective was to begin to put in place Shirekeep under siege and to put resistance to the rule of the usurper onto a legal footing.

After the death of Kaiser Dominus, Rhydian Fithen pledged his allegiance to Tokaray al-Osman, who assumed office as Kaiser Aurangzeb II Steffki, and was rewarded with promotion to Squadron Leader, command of his beloved 180 Squadron, and a posting to Yardistan to counter the mustering of Alexandrian and Natopian naval forces.

The course of the Putsch

The Landsraad, the Palace of the Prefect, the Ministry of the Interior and the broadcasting apparatus of the Office of Information remained under the control of the 'Loyalists'. There was some talk of an evacuation being mounted from the ESB and SEKEF docks by the Elwynnese, yet those same docks were under the guns of the Jaysh al-Sathrati Panzergrenadier Brigade, whose vehicles had pushed into the Cabbagefall Terminal during the night of the coup – making any attempt by the Riverine Forces of the Union Defence Force to force a passage from Eliria into Shirekeep a risky venture. The Jaysh, using assets liberated from the Goldshire Regulars, had also moved howitzers and Buk launchers into positions opposite Raynor's Keep, providing thereby the means to deliver suppressing fire upon Raynortoo Park if the fighting resumed. While the Prefect, the Praetor and the Steward had all made good their escape, the City Guard and the Crypteia had bagged a goodly haul of wounded and fearful electors, who had been herded down to the Cedrist Worship Hall of the Outer Keep. There subtle pressure was being exerted on them to acclaim the new Kaiser and to elect an interim Praetor, seeing as the official officeholder had reputedly fled to her holiday home in Elwynn.

The Ministry of the Exterior, the Ministry of Military Affairs, and its adjacent flak-towers, bunkers and depots, connected by a ratline network of tunnels, had remained in the hands of the conspirators. The four legions of the Palatini Corps, the Order of Kampioens, upon finding that they had been locked out of their own bases by S.W.O.R.D. and the Logistics Troops of the Shirerithian Supplies Service, had been given pause in their ferocious attack on Raynor's Keep and had retired a small distance to the north in some disorder. The Landsraad Guard (Scholae Equites Singulares) had sent a force of approximately five-hundred guardsmen to scour Raynortoo Park for any survivors of the initial carnage. These had subsequently been caught up in the exchange of fire between the City Guards' Special Assignments Squad in the Iron Gate Tower and a force of Kampioens from the Legion of Octavius.

The most active resistance in the city had come from the Scholae legions which had been transferred into the Imperial Constabulary by Kaiser Dominus to remove them from the control of the coup plotters, whom he half-suspected but couldn't quite bring himself to believe that they would dare. Ironically, taking their orders now from the Minister of the Interior, the Scholae Triarii had blown the newly inaugurated Kaiser Dominus Bridge, leaving the Goldshire Tower in the hands of the Jaysh and the Shirekeep Tower as a vital anchor point in the Loyalist front. This complicated matters. Without the bridges, the conspirators, hemmed into their enclave were isolated and vulnerable. Yet, succour came in the form of the presence of the Jaysh on the Goldshire side of the River Elwynn, and also from the declaration of the Imperial Army, the Western Armada and the Imperial Shirerithian Air Forces of their loyalty to the new regime. There would soon be landing craft, helicopters and gravtanks available. In the meantime, there were other bridges.

Al-Osman had declared, during that unnatural calm, that the Kaiser had fallen, under circumstances that remained studiously unexplained, leaving to him the Golden Mango Throne. What the new Kaiser, who announced himself as the second to bear the name of Aurangzeb, proclaimed to the world was a policy of genocide and conquest that perplexed and horrified in equal measure. It did not help soothe the strained nerves of the neighbouring empires that Shireroth had, during the reign of the preceding three Kaisers, built up the largest modern field army in the history of Micras.

Aftermath

Subsequent to the events of the massacre, as the nature of the regime led by Tokaray became more apparent, the Imperial States of Elwynn and Lichbrook came out strongly against the new regime installed in Shirekeep, setting in motion the brief but bloody civil war that ensued and led to the downfall of the triumvirate of Tokaray, Adam and Ludovic.