## Overview --- ![[flag_UVHE.png]] The *Union of Velsh Hagioist Emirates*, also known as the Velsh Union (or simply UVHE) is a large country that makes up most of the southeastern region of [[Kedavaara]]. It is the second largest country on Kedavaara after [[Ankylosante|Ankylosante]], but because it includes the Haqimi Desert and Kabir Jungle within its border, only a little over half of its territory is actually habitable. It is bordered to the north by [[Ciselmany|Ciselmany]] and to the west by [[Transelmany|Transelmany]]. [[Aswan|Aswan Island]] to the south was formerly part of its territory as the Velsh Kingdom, but after a [[Hagioism|Hagioist]] revolution overthrew the monarchy, they fled to it and established a new royal government there. Despite its official name, it is almost universally known as either the Velsh Union (formerly, Velsh Republic) and sometimes UVHE for short. | Common Name | Velsh Union | | ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Capital | Al-Rulaya | | Largest city | Bay of Bawaz | | Official languages | Velsh | | Demonym | Velsh | | Government | Unitary [[Hagioism\|Hagioist-Fayowaist]] one-party socialist republic | | Foundation | 17 Lansani 653 AL | | Area | 253,000 sq km [297,000 sq km incl. [[Aswan]]] | | Population | 9,000,000 (3rd) | | Currency | Medin *(VLM)* | ## History --- ### Early History (74—652 AL) The region was once a collection of warring states ruled by tribal chiefs, until Jemima of the Sand, a ferocious immolator from al-Rulaya, defeated the other seven warlords in 74 AL to establish a new unified Velsh Kingdom. The noble house she would create soonafter as Queen gave the Jemimamite Dynasty its name. Queen Jemima would reorganize the warring states into principalities answerable to her kingdom’s capital, al-Rulaya. Her descendants would continue to rule the country in her name, but unlike their beloved ancestor, future rulers of the Velsh Kingdom would be reviled for their hedonism, as Velsh society would undergo similar levels of degeneration as seen in the Elman and Ankylan kingdoms. ### Arrival of Hagioism (652—653 AL) The revolution against the Jemimamite Dynasty began in the Haqimi Desert during the summer of 652 AL. By this point, the seven principalities had grown in number to ten, and the capital of the country had moved east to the Bay of Bawaz. Because of its large size and mostly uninhabitable landscape, the Principility of Haqimi was historically the most fragile and insecure, and a hotbed for violent anti-government activity. When the [[Voromiraka]] apostles sent by Zainab Garba arrived from Altus, they were able to join with local [[Hagioism|Hagioist]] militias and take control of the border city Lodan almost immediately; defeating the royal regiment stationed there, radicalizing the local population and establishing the Lodan People’s Majlis: the first basilica (‘majlis’ was the Velsh term for what ‘basilica’ described in Elman) in the country. After fortifying the town and its surrounding environs, they would create the Velsh Hagioist Emirate to combine the various desert militias into the Velsh Liberation Brigades, a unified fighting force under the formal political & military control of a singular Hagioist party, allowing for more effective operational command following the principles of democratic centralism Fayowa had written about in Deadline. Sadiq Sarki, a potent fulgurator from Lodan, had become the most prominent Velsh Hagioist at this time, and his achievements earned him great respect among the VHE. This would elevate him to the newly-created position of Emir, and making him the de facto leader of the Emirate, effectively becoming Yemisi’s counterpart. The two cities of Lodan and Muntbatten would establish diplomatic relations (in the form of dedicated liasons) shortly after that. ### Velsh Revolution (653—656 AL) This marked a transition into open warfare against the kingdom, and by the spring of 653, positive news regarding the Velsh had reached [[Leaders of Transelmany|Fayowa]] in Muntbatten. She sent Zainab Garba to assist the Haqimi Hagioists directly, and by that summer the entire southwestern region of the Velsh Kingdom came under Hagioist control. Garba would help Sarki plan the Battle of al-Rulaya, and just 2 months later the city was captured by VLB and Voromiraka forces. On 17 Lansani 653, from the balcony of Jemima’s Rose Palace, the ***Velsh Majlis Republic*** (colloquially known as the Velsh Republic) was declared by Sadiq Sarki as a liberated base area for the Hagioist movement and safe haven for all Velsh people, with the ancient capital of Al-Rulaya reinstated as its new capital. It consisted of the Southern Haqimi Majlis Emirate in the desert, the Yolani Majlis Emirate in the southwestern coast, and the Rulaya Majlis Emirate in the southeastern coast. After fully expelling royal forces from the Yolani Peninsula region, they expanded their zone of control in the Haqimi Desert northwards along the [[Transelmany|Transelman]] border to the town of Haidan, where the Haidan People’s Majlis was created to capital the new North Haqimi Majlis Emirate. They did the same in the southern coast, expanding from Al-Rulaya outwards until they met back up with the southern desert detachment of the VLB. After that, a local Hagioist militia from the Kabir Jungle acted independently to capture the city of Plania and create the Plania Majlis. When news of these events reached Al-Rulaya, they sent a VLB grouping to make contact and help them secure the Kabir Jungle region and establish the Kabir Majlis Emirate, which was incorporated into the VMR. In 654 AL, the VMR formally began a similar campaign of [[History of Transelmany — Foundation & Protracted Rebellion (648-658 AL)|Protracted Rebellion]] against the demoralized Velsh Kingdom’s eastern principalities as Transelmany was currently waging against the Elman Kingdom in South Elmany. The success of the Hagioists in the east became impossible to ignore, and the effective organizational capacity of the VHE began to produce results, as more VLB detachments emerged throughout the Velsh countryside, slowly but surely establishing Hagioist control over much of the rural areas to serve as forward operating areas for eventual VLB assaults on the seat of power in each Principality. By 655, after the capture of the Sadiq and Ali Principalities by local VLB regiments, a majority of the former Velsh Kingdom was now under Hagioist control. #### Reorganization However, as a result of the Velsh Kingdom’s large size, the extent of Hagioist control over its former principalities resulted in increasingly strained supply and communication lines for them, that started to cause setbacks on the battlefield. Until now, the VHE had closely followed the strategic advice of Zainab Garba, viewing her experience in the liberation of the Altus as a crucial blueprint; but northern Transelmany’s comparatively smaller size coupled with the fact that Fayowa had effectively delegated tactical responsibility for the other regions to her bishops, who ended up using methods that strayed from her Hagioist principles meant that she had little input concerning the next steps in the VMR. She let them know that they would have to come up with a novel solution. Seeing the need for the VHE to optimize its organizational structure, its central council of Emirs took the decision to disband and re-establish it as the Central Velsh Emirate, which would have jurisdiction over the Rulaya Majlis Emirate, now also called the Central Velsh Emirate. A slew of restructuring followed: - The Yolani Majlis Emirate would now be called the Yolani Emirate, and the Dasun People’s Majlis would have regional autonomy to govern it and command its VLB detachment. - The Northern and Southern Haqimi Majlis Emirates would be combined into the singular Haqimi Emirate, with similar privileges bestowed onto the Lodan People’s Majlis. - The Kabir Emirate, as well as the newly liberated Sadiq and Ali Emirates would follow these same structures. The constitution of the VMR would also change to accommodate this new structure, and the country was renamed as the ***Union of Velsh Hagioist Emirates***, reflecting the fact that each constituent Emirate of the VMR now had administrative capacity in its own right, and did not need to wait for instructions from Al-Rulaya before acting: the biggest problem the VHE had been facing. However, despite this now official clarification, the entire country would often continue to be referred to as either the VMR or the Velsh Republic, even though the full extent of territory ever controlled by the VMR was much smaller than what the UVHE now encompassed. These days, in official communications, the Velsh Union or the UVHE are preferred, but in common parlance the Velsh Republic is still commonly used outside the country. Velsh people today refer to their country as the Velsh Union. Despite outward appearances, this setup in practice did not result in factionalism, something already observable in Transelmany that Garba was extremely wary of. This was because each Emirate was administered by what was effectively a local branch of the CVE, and took decisions in their name. There was no risk of the sort of ideological divergence seen in Transelmany because the reorganization had only taken place after initially unified VHE control, and the task of liberating those areas had always been carried out directly by VLB forces; unlike in Transelmany where the extent of direct unified Voromiraka control was limited to the northern mountain regions, while other areas were newly deroyalized by factions without direct Voromiraka oversight. This was why basilicas were not always established first before carefully radicalizing the local populations and seizing power from the royal authorities, as had been standard procedure in the northern mountain regions and throughout the eastern Velsh Kingdom. #### Royal Defeat By 656 AL, the entire mainland of the former Velsh Kingdom had come under CVE control, with the exception of the Island Principality of Aswan. The royal family and noble court had fled there after VLB forces invaded the Velsh Kingdom’s capital, Bay of Bawaz, from two different directions in the Battle of Bawaz Bay. In this battle, the Royal Velsh Army was almost completely destroyed, because the Velsh King Hassan had taken direct military command despite being unfamiliar with the VLB’s tactics. He ordered the bulk of his troops north because he believed the VLB would attack from the city gate in the north and work their way down to the ocean. Instead, the VLB infiltrated the city covertly from the east and west, disguising themselves as traders and farmers to pass through the lightly guarded checkpoints. In addition, Hagioist agents were already present in Bawaz Bay, and had begun the process of radicalization among the peasantry. Because the VLB was a guerilla army with no formal chain-of-command, they were trusted to make military decisions on the fly, being guided only by broad strokes principles given by the CVE. As such, when the battle actually began, it wasn’t a frontal assault and siege of the city, but a surprise assault from its flanks paired with an uprising within the city. With their rear completely exposed, and the city largely unprotected, it was a decisive Hagioist victory. The VLB obliterated 16 of the 18 Velsh Army divisions and the Royal Palace was captured in one day. Seeing the chaos, the royal family and their court had fled the palace and boarded a ship to Aswan before the VLB could destroy the city’s port. Because they had no navy, they were unable to pursue the royals into Aswan and decided to halt offensive actions there. After the local Hagioists captured the island of Diram (off the southern peninsula) in the CVE’s name, hostilities in the Velsh Revolution ended. The capital was kept in Al-Rulaya, with the Bawaz People’s Mijlis being established to oversee the new Bawaz Emirate. Only a few years later in 661, the VLB would intervene in the Transelman Civil War to help the Voromiraka as they had done in the past. By this point, the Velsh Union was much more capable, and they turned the tide of the war in Fayowa’s favor decisively. ### Modern Era (663 AL — present) Today, the Velsh Union remains mostly peaceful, but still deals with anti-Hagioist terrorism from the Crown Restoration Movement and other anti-Hagioist groups. The country has seen dramatic improvements in developmental metrics, of a similar level to Transelmany, and many of its urban centers now have larger populations than before the revolution. Sadiq Sarki is no longer the leader of the CVE, but he still sits on the central council, no longer the sole Emir. The UVHE practices a similar approach to collective leadership as Transelmany does, and has no formal ‘leader’, but the most prominent Emir on the council today is Fatima Bello, a hydrator from Bawaz. ## Administrative Divisions --- ![[UVHE_political.jpg]] *Map of the UVHE showing its constituent emirates.* Emirates of the Velsh Union are the primary governing administrative divisions of the country built after the collapse of the Velsh Kingdom. When the revolution against the Velsh Kingdom began in the Haqimi Desert in 652 AL, it consisted of ten principalities that answered to the capital in the Bay of Bawaz: - ***Yolani***, in the western half of the Yolani Peninsula - ***Haqimi***, in the Haqimi Desert - ***Kabir***, in the northern jungle - ***Rulaya***, in the eastern half of the Yolani Peninsula - ***Suqar***, in the central coast - ***Batsina***, in the central plains - ***Enri***, in the eastern plains - ***Aswan***, an island off the southeastern coast - ***Katan***, in the southeastern coast - ***Qaddar***, in the northeastern coast The principality of Haqimi was the most historically fragile, because of its large size and sparse population. Hagioists took control of the desert almost immediately, and it became a liberated base area from which the revolution planned and executed its assaults on the Kingdom, and to which it returned afterwards. These principalities were successively invaded and subverted by the VLB over the course of the revolution, which eventually became a full-scale civil war between the new socialist republic in the western half of the country, and the weakened Velsh Kingdom in the east. By the end of the war, the rechristened Velsh Union consisted of eight Hagioist Emirates: - ***Haqimi***, replacing the former principality of the same name - ***Kabir***, replacing the former principality of the same name - ***Yolani***, replacing the former principality of the same name - ***Central Velsh Emirate***, replacing Rulaya - ***Sadiq***, combining and replacing Suqar and Batsina - ***Ali***, replacing Enri - ***Bawaz***, combining and replacing the royal capital region and Katan - ***Qaddar***, replacing the former principality of the same name The VLB was never able to reach Aswan Island, which is where the deposed monarchy and noble families fled to after the war. Today, the Velsh Union still claims Aswan as part of its legal territory, but they have no intention of ever restarting hostilities-- instead maintaining a belief that the workers and peasants of Aswan will take the initiative on their own and complete the revolution to finally reunite with their homeland. ## Geography --- ![[UVHE_climate.jpg]] *Map of the UVHE showing its various climates.* #### Area With a combined area of about 250,000 sq km, the UVHE is the second-largest country on Kedavaara-- although including Aswan Island in that total pushes it closer to the 300,000 sq km. #### Population The UVHE has an estimated 9,000,000 people, and Aswan Island has about 1,000,000, 90% of whom live in Jumeirah. The largest cities in the UVHE are Bay of Bawaz, al-Rulaya and Qaddar. #### Climate The western regions of the country are dominated by the Haqimi Desert, making rainfall scarce. The Kabir Jungle dominates the northern region, and average temperatures are the lowest. The rest of the country has very mild weather, and is dominated by tropical savanna, The southern coast has more rainfall on average than the country's interior.