JeffEngel wrote:
"Means to resist" themselves fall on a sort of continuum. You can have your will and ability to deploy armies in the field broken without having your will and ability to conduct guerrilla warfare or a worrisome low-level insurgency broken with it.
You can have the crushing victories without leaving yourself nothing, ever, to worry about on the other side of the field and no one you need to discuss terms with. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, there was still a France - large and a part of the Congress of Vienna, with one monarch traded for another. It was certainly considerably defanged and spent the next 50 years with everyone looking at it suspiciously - and then kicked around for German political uses in 1870. But still, very much a player, especially overseas. And after WWII, even split and occupied, Germany was a player in the system on either side.
If you don't want someone you have to deal with - even from a position of distinct advantage - you don't beat Napoleon like Wellington and friends did, or Germany like the Allies did. You beat Carthage like Rome did. March in, kill everyone you don't sell off into slavery, break the buildings, salt the earth. A milder version is occupation, assimilation, and wiping out everything that gives them any continuity with the cultural identity they had before. Charis doesn't do that in its own territory - it's not going to be able to do it across Harchong and Desnair. And it's certainly got no interest in Carthaginian resolutions.
I don't think this phase is going to end with any negotiations where both sides come to the table as approximate peers and simply wrap up fighting. Please don't read me that way. It's going to end with terms pretty well dictated to the CoGA, but they're going to be terms that don't go far beyond the articulated war aims of the EoC: we get to exist; you recognize you lost; the relevant dirty laundry on your side is aired; and various provisions to make this kind of business even harder may be included.
But there's still going to be a CoGA on the other side of the table. It's going to have its universality broken, right there in the treaty. It'll have the jihad renounced and likely everyone involved in the Sword of Schueler and the death camps handed off for trial without benefit of clerical status. Oh, and it's going to be broke and in debt, but that's not even needed as part of the treaty. But even if the Allies could demand the destruction of that church, they could not enforce it without occupying the rest of Haven and Howard and they cannot pull that off. Aiming for provisions you cannot enforce - whatever your military superiority right now in the field - would be stupid and begging for the defeated parties to rise back up.
It'll be enough to break the Church's claims in the treaty and let its finances and national interests do the rest. Give things another decade or two and Safehold will ready itself for the next step.
Everyone seems to thinking of the COGA forcees as a unified entity. But it is really a coalition. Yo date everyone that Charis has beaten has come to terms with Charis to end hostilities. To date, that has mostly meant becoming part of Charis.
However, the Raven Lords agreed to allow Charision forces to travel over their territory for a cash payment and has continued to do business with Charis since then. The Raven Lords argument was that they couldn'r stop charis. They could have delayed them though almost certainly long enough for the COGA to have completed their conquest of Siddarmark. As it was, the first Charisian forces were barely in time to stop the COGA forces until the Majority of the charisian army could arrive.
Remember, Such a conversion is entirely one-way. The rest of the mainland is supporting the COGA because no one state has the strength to resist. However, a state is in the position of being completely overrun by Charis and Siddarmark or changing sides. They will do what everyone has done to date. They will change sides.
Charis and Siddarmark will impose terms that put the reformists in postions of power and the Temple Loyalists will flee to the Temple Lands. A few may try to become insurgents, But the Seijin Network has proven to be quite adept at breaking up organized insurgencies.
The only places that are likely to fight to the bitter end is Harchong, desnair, and The Temple Lands. The people in power in these laces are too entrenched into the currnet pardigm to be likely to change sides.
The way to end this conflict is to force the Border Lands into switching sides by taking out the Church forces and the marching onto the Border Lands. Each state will aggree to terms as they come under pressure. With Sardahn it probably won't take much, The ruler of Sardahn is likely seething at what the Inquisition did to one of his/her towns. as each state joins, helps them deal with the local inquisition and provide technical assistance. Once the local economy starts to improve, The majority will be fervent Reformers.
Then when Charis his rteady, move to take on Dohlar. After, the Dohlaran army and navy has been defeated, they well also agree to terms. At this point, Silkiah will also join if they haven't already without having to conquer them.
At this point, The Charisian Allinace can send forces to attack via lake Pei, which has better logistics than trying to use Hseng-Hu's passage. It is usable in the summer and the winter. The spring and fall are the only times when resupply is not possible.
Once the coga is dealt with, Harchong and Desnair will have no choice but to agrree to terms.
I think it is important that all states that join the alkiance be rquired to eliminate slavery and serfdom in the territory. It'n not only the moral tning to do but it stengthens the reformists while also weakening the forces that would oppose reforms.
At the end of this The coga would essentially be a nonentity. The various alliance churches would likely have to create a council of some kind to oversee administration of Zion.
