The History of Equestria Under Alternia Part 18 (589 AR): The Battle in the Desert, Ch. 15 of the Saddle Arabian War Arc
First off, if you would like to know more about how to create/write a fictional army, I posted the first part to my "Guide to Designing a Fictional Army" in my blog, which you access by clicking the link here. Without further ado, have fun!
It took two months for the Equestrian Army to be reinforced and to gather the necessary supplies to march on Breehoofen. The problem was that despite their victories, the Equestrian Army had taken losses and needed new commanders, officers, and ponies to reinforce them.
But by the end of the month they set out with a huge force of 27,000 ponies on the Royal Road to Breehoofen.
Equestrians: 27,000
Supreme Commander: Princess Alternia
Commander of the Equestrian 1st Army: Princess Blueblood
1st Division “Princess’s Ponies” - Brigadier General Eumenes, ponies 6000
- 1st Royal Guard: 1500 ponies, unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies, “Captain” Magnolia
- Manehattan Rangers: 1500 ponies, earth ponies, Colonel Pumpkin Squash
- Las Pegassus Hussars: 1000 ponies, pegasi, Colonel Kowalski
- Equestrian Foreign Legion: 2000 Soldiers, 7 6-pounder cannon, Colonel Mustang
2nd Division “Aventail’s Avengers” - Major General - Aventail Armor 4000 ponies
- First Cloudsdale Blues Brigade: 1000
- Second Cloudsdale Blues Brigade: 1000
- Spark Brigade (Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns Brigade): 1000
- Trottingham Light Brigade: 1000
4th division - Major General Athefled - 5000 ponies
- 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Equestrian Fyrd Brigades, 1000 ponies each
5th division - Brigadier General Argent Defender- 6000 ponies
- The Equestrian Beefeaters 2000 earth ponies and unicorns
- The Sherbrooke Rangers 1000 earth ponies
- The Eagle’s Brigade 2000 pegasi
- The Equestrian Zouaves (light infantry)- 1000, earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi
6th division - Colonel Red Plum Blossom - 6000 ponies
- The Rockhoof Pioneers: 1000 ponies
- The Star Brigade: 1000 ponies
- The Flash Brigade 1000 ponies
- The Wings of Sonambula: 1000 ponies
- Meadowbrook’s Combat Medics: 1000
- Mistmane’s Illusionists: 1000
Of course, the Saddle Arabians hadn’t been idle and reinforced their armies as well. Ginger had under her overall command, 30,000 horses split into two corps under the command of Brigadier General Xanthos, Rapier Apple’s old priest friend and General Mountague.
Lieutenant General Ginger
The Saddle Arabian Desert Rats - Brigadier General Xanthos, 14,000
- 1st division: 3,000
- 2nd division: 3,000
- 3rd division: 3,000
- The Silver Janissaries (Elite division): 3,000
- 4th division (reserves): 2,000
The Hammer of Saddle Arabia: 13,000 General Mountague
- 1st Division: 3000 horses
- 2nd Division: 3000 horses
- 3rd Division: 5000 horses
- Reserves: 2000
- The Royal Guard - 3000
Both sides had high morale. The Equestrians were buoyed by their recent victories and by the presence of Princess “Celestia.” The Saddle Arabians were fearful of defeat, hopeful they could repeat their successes under Ginger and ready to avenge their defeats.
It would all come to a head underneath the sunscorched desert dunes, but not in the way either expected.
You see reader, like any good commander, Ginger refused to play fair with the Equestrians. She decided that if she was going to fight them, she’d rather ambush the ponies where they think they couldn’t be ambushed, in the open desert, on the dunes.
Alternia and Princess Blueblood in the meanwhile, expected that Ginger would try some kind of deception. So, aside from deploying the usual pegasi forward scouts, the Equestrian Army adopted a less-than-typical marching order.
The five remaining divisions of the Equestrian Army marched not in a long column, with every division behind the other, but in a flexible echelon formation. Essentially, it was a huge diagonal formed by the squares of the five divisions. The idea behind this was to allow all the Equestrian divisions freedom of movement to support one another, give each division good visibility, and to enable the entire army to quickly form a battle line if necessary.
Ginger found this formation incredibly annoying. As intended by Princess Blueblood and Princess Alternia (who recalled the formation being proposed by Voulge years ago) even if the Equestrians were attacked by the Saddle Arabians from two directions, the Equestrian Army’s divisions would be able to respond flexibly, and even allow the central division in the echelon formation to remain as a reserve.
The Saddle Arabian general realised her only solution was to envelope the Equestrians echelon formation from the ends of the army, destroying, or maiming the divisions at the ends of the formation, before crushing the centre.
The problem was the timing and how to ensure that her forces won’t be spotted by Equestrian fliers.
Mountague had an idea as to how to solve this. He knew the Saddle Arabian desert well and knew that there were often dust storms. These storms had a habit of reducing visibility and they often were accompanied by winds strong enough to ground most pegasi. The Saddle Arabians could thus hide their forces from Equestrian pegasi scouts.
Furthermore, the Equestrians were sticking to the Royal Road, a route known to the Saddle Arabians. The road had watering spots at specific villages and oases. There were too many of these watering spots to destroy, but the Equestrian army could only move in a certain way, and they had to stick close to the road as it was the fastest way in-between these watering points.
The Saddle Arabians could thus split their forces and laid an ambush. It would not be the type of ambush that would surprise and surround the Equestrians. Rather, it was an ambush of maneuver. As the Equestrian armies would cross from the oasis at Persopolis to the town of Thebes, Ginger would take half of the army, her Desert Rats, to intercept them from their front, whilst Mountague would take his half, the Hammer of Saddle Arabia, and approach from the rear.
On the morning of August 15, the Equestrian army was marching along the Saddle Arabian Royal Road in a echelon left formation. The vanguard was led by the 5th division, followed by the 4th division, then the 1st Division, the 3rd division, and finally the 2nd Division. The idea with this arrangement was to allow the less combat-fatigued troops to meet the enemy first, while protecting the less numerous 2nd division.
Now, the Saddle Arabians had planned to encircle the ends of the Equestrian Army, but coordinating two armies on a good day is already pretty hard. Mountague had managed to position himself perfectly so that his army was approaching the left end of their echelon formations, whilst having his movements masked by the storm. However, Ginger had made a uncharacteristic mistake. It was a small one, but it would prove critical to the outcome of the battle.
She had been ordered by King Iosef to appoint Brigadier General Xanthos as the commander of her Saddle Arabian desert rats. Now, she liked Xanthos, a little too much according to some historians. After all, she and Xanthos used to court one another, and they sometimes still shared a bed, despite being married to different horses. Moreover, Xanthos was a trained military commander who had previously put down a number of slave revolts. So Ginger hadn’t protested too much when Xanthos was promoted and put in charge of the Saddle Arabian Desert Rats.
While Mountague had been marching off, Xanthos and Ginger had conferred and he had convinced her to change her ambush strategy. The change actually made the ambush strategy that Ginger had come up slightly better. Instead of approaching the Equestrian formation from the right end of their echelon formation, they would instead block the road, and advance upon the Equestrian formation upon their appearance, pinning them down. This would allow Mountague to hit the Equestrians from behind and envelope one of their flanks.
So on that August morning, the Equestrian army sighted Xanthos’s forces.
Princess Alternia and Princess Blueblood were extremely wary of the army they saw. Ginger’s force was only a little more than half of what they expected to see, and so it seemed strange that the typically cunning Ginger would take up such an obvious defensive position.
After conferring with her division commanders, Princess Blueblood gave the order for the Equestrians to march ahead in their echelon left formation. They would hit the Saddle Arabians left flank, turn it, and cause a rout. Admittedly, their scouts hadn’t been able to get a lot of reconnaissance done due to the dust storms nearby, but they had an enemy in front of them blocking the road, and so they were going to have to fight them.
Still, the Equestrian army didn’t just charge in, they marched ahead with some caution and had a few pegasi scouts on its flanks.
Mountague, knowing the Equestrians were advancing down the road and realizing (after his scouts had a look) that they were headed toward Xanthos’s Desert Rats, seized his moment, formed his army up, and advanced toward the ponies.
It was then that one of the Equestria 2nd Division’s scouts spotted the leading ranks of Mountague’s forces. The pegasi wasn’t able to get a clear view, but he immediately reported back to Aventail that they had enemies on their flank.
Aventail acted with characteristic aggression. She wheeled the 2nd division, now nicknamed, “Aventail’s Avengers” around, and charged. What she didn’t know was that she was heading right into the thick of Mountague’s forces.
As Aventail approached, she quickly realized her mistake. Her division was now out of position and isolated from the Equestrian army. Still, she knew that if she just halted, the Saddle Arabians would be able to smash into the flank of the Equestrian Army. So she continued her charge, and sent a message by crystal to Princess Blueblood to let her know the situation.
Back near the centre of the army, where the Equestrian 1st Division - the “Princess’s Ponies” were - Princess Blueblood was shocked by the development. She started to issue orders for the Equestrian 4th division and the Reserve Division to reinforce Aventail’s 2nd Division, but that was when she saw the army ahead of her, the Saddle Arabian Desert Rats, began a slow advance.
If Xanthos had charged the entire Saddle Arabian army forward, he might have been able to guarantee victory, but he wanted to maintain his army’s order, and so he had chosen a deliberately slow advance. Ginger was busy surveying the entire battle from a nearby dune and was away from both armies and so she couldn’t immediately order Xanthos to attack.
Still, Princess Blueblood was stuck on what to do. Aventail was completely out of position, but they had a large force advancing to their front. Princess Alternia suggested they turn and focus on saving Aventail, but Blueblood vetoed the plan immediately, pointing out they would be hit in the back if they did so.
Alternia then told Blueblood that she could hold the Saddle Arabians back if she had some ponies to back her up. So Blueblood made a snap decision. She decided to leave the larger Equestrian 1st and Reserve Divisions as a rearguard. Meanwhile, she would take the 4th and 5th divisions to reinforce Aventail.
The problem was to who to assign command of the the 1st and Reserve divisions. The new commander of the Equestrian 1st Division, Brigadier General Eumenes, was senior in rank, but hadn’t actually commanded a division in battle. He had mainly been Archmage Elderberry Twist’s Chief of Staff and while an experienced staff officer, he was not a field commander. Still, Elderberry Twist had highly recommended Eumenes, as had her brigade commanders, which had led to him being appointed as the 1st Division’s new commander.
Blueblood was actually going to ask Princess Alternia to lead the rearguard, as the princess had centuries of tactical and strategic knowledge. However, Alternia immediately declined, citing her need to focus on spell casting. So Blueblood had to ask Eumenes to keep the Saddle Arabian Desert Rats off their backs with the 1st and 6th divisions, and Princess Alternia.
Eumenes swore he would and so Blueblood rushed to the 4th division, whilst sending orders to the 5th division to on the far end of the echelon line to rush back.
Moving quickly, Eumenes also issued his own orders for Colonel Plum Blossom’s reserve division and the 1st Equestrian Division to take up positions across the Saddle Arabian Royal Road. He had something perfect in mind.
About the same time that Eumenes had taken command, Aventail’s division and Mountague’s 3rd Division charged one another.
Four thousand ponies, two thousand of which were pegasi, formed a wall of lancepoints, which were preceded by blasts of magic from Aventail’s unicorns. The actual line of unicorns and earth ponies that Aventail fielded were dwarfed by the five thousand strong of Mountague’s 3rd Division. They formed this unbroken line of charging horse, neighing as they plunged through the explosions, lightning and bolts that Aventail’s unicorns fired.
Contact was brutal. The two charges met in this carnage of horse and pony toppling over one another. The charge of the two Cloudsdale Blues brigades that composed of half of Aventail’s division was particularly savage. The Saddle Arabians had little defense against plunging pegasi that smashed their spears into their heads and swarmed above them like deadly gnats. They did however have archers that could shoot over their heads and into the ranks of the Equestrians.
Luckily for Aventail, Argent Defender had turned her 5th division around and was going toward Aventail. Meanwhile, Athelflaed and the Equestrian 4th division were already moving to support the 2nd division.
You
They clashed with the 1st and 2nd division of Mountague’s army, which numbered 6,000 horses to Argent Defender’s 6,000. The fighting on that flank would surge back and forth, with Argent Defender’s earth and unicorn ponies managing to get off a better charge - thanks to the firepower provided by unicorn magic - but not quite able to counter the Saddle Arabians greater height and size advantage.
It did make sure though that Aventail wasn’t flanked on one side, but Mountague had deployed the Saddle Arabian Royal Guard to harass Aventail’s flank. They couldn’t get off a charge safely, as Aventail had diverted one of her brigades of Cloudsdale Blues pegasi to screen her flank. Still, they allowed the Saddle Arabian 3rd division to drive Aventail’s forces back, to the point the 3rd division was flanking Argent Defenders division.
However, Mountague’s fortunes were going to shift for the 5,000 ponies of Aetheflaed’s 4th division with Princess Blueblood were charging in. Mountague moved his Royal Guard and his Reserve division to intercept.
Unfortunately, Mountague’s reserves were all raw conscripts with barely enough training to stay together. They were too slow in moving into position and Argent Defender’s division managed to charge into their flank.
The Saddle Arabian Royal Guard held, but Mountague’s reserves shattered and ran, meaning that the three thousand Saddle Arabian Royal Guard was facing five thousand ponies. They were putting up a good fight, though, and the Equestria centre in the south, held by Aventail’s 2nd Division was going to break.
Meanwhile, to the north, The Saddle Arabian Desert Rats were closing on the Equestrians. Eumenes decided to counter them with an old tactic called, the Oblique Order. He aligned the Royal Guard diagonally to the enemy and stretched the Royal Guard very thin, whilst concentrated the Reserve Corp on his right flank. He then ordered a charge and asked Alternia to support the Reserve Division.
The discipline of the 1st Division was key in this maneuver. They had to charge in a echelon line for Eumenes plan to work.
Of course, Xanthos ordered a counter-charge, and the divisions met. Alternia, at the head of the Reserve Division, unleashed a scything beam of magic, which halted the Saddle Arabian 3rd and 4th divisions in their tracks, disrupting their charge. It allowed the Reserve Division unicorns to unleash their own magic, before the earth ponies and pegasi slammed into the Saddle Arabians, and almost routed them. Only the sheer weight of the two Saddle Arabian divisions prevented a total break, but the left flank of the Saddle Arabian Desert Rats was at a clear disadvantage.
On the Equestrian left flank though, held by the 1st Division, something weird happened. Ginger eventually realized what was about to happen, but she was too busy helping Mountague coordinate his defense. She had expected Xanthos’s greater numbers to crush the Equestrians, but this… she hadn’t anticipated Eumenes’s counter-move.
The Saddle Arabian divisions were charging in large block formations and as the corners of their blocks hit the angled Equestrian charge, a ripple effect ran through the tightly-packed horses but at an angle to the motion of their charge. That meant that despite the thinner Royal Guard line, the Saddle Arabian charge was thrown into utter chaos as horses who were galloping forward ended up being side-slammed by their own comrades.
The result, a mess of Saddle Arabian bodies stumbling over one another as they tried to sort themselves out, but utterly failed as the 1st Division continued to advance, with their pegasi attacking from the air. Their formations collapsing, the Saddle Arabian right broke, allowing the Royal Guard to start wrapping around the flank of the Saddle Arabian Silver Janissaries.
Xanthos was fighting near the front, trying to rallying his breaking and fleeing horses. High in the air, Alternia could see him and the Saddle Arabian Silver Janissaries pushing into the Equestrian Centre, and with her personal bodyguard, she dove in.
Fire torched Xanthos and his command staff, which didn’t break the Silver Janissaries, but it did cause the remaining Saddle Arabians to rout as his banners fell.
Xanthos survived though, and was taken off the battlefield, horribly burned as his Silver Janissaries desperately tried to withdraw under the pressure of the Equestrian 1st and Reserve divisions. Despite their situation being hopeless, the Silver Janissaries fought almost to the last horse. Only Princess Alternia calling up lightning strikes targeting their command staff and remaining banner-carriers led them to surrender en-masse.
There was no time to rest though. Eumenes left Princess Alternia and the Reserve division to chase the Saddle Arabian stragglers, while he led the 1st Division southwards. Aventail’s division had finally buckled when she was wounded in battle and Mountague had split the southernmost Equestrian divisions. His right flank was near collapse due to the pressure from Argent Defender’s division, but he could win this fight. However, that was when he was ordered to disengage by Ginger, who was with him. She could see that once the Equestrian 1st Division arrived, the Saddle Arabians were doomed.
Mountague’s horses somehow managed an orderly withdrawal, mostly because the Equestrians were too exhausted to pursue, but the victor of the Battle of the Desert was clear.
Equestrians Casualties: 6900
Equestrian Combat Effective Ponies: 20,100 ponies
Supreme Commander: Princess Alternia
Commander of the Equestrian 1st Army: Princess Blueblood
1st Division “Princess’s Ponies” - Brigadier General Eumenes, ponies 5000 combat effectives + 500 wounded+ 500 dead
2nd Division “Aventail’s Avengers” - Major General - Aventail Armor 2000 combat effectives + 1000 dead, 1000 wounded.
4th division - Major General Athefled - 3000 ponies effective 1000 wounded 1000 dead
5th division - Brigadier General Argent Defender- 5000 ponies effective 500 wounded, 500 dead
6th division - Colonel Red Plum Blossom - 5100 ponies effective, 800 wounded 100 dead
Saddle Arabian Casualties: 12,000
Saddle Arabian Combat Effective Horse: 15,000
Lieutenant General Ginger
The Saddle Arabian Desert Rats - Brigadier General Xanthos, 14,000 starting force, 6,000 casualties, 8,000 alive
The Hammer of Saddle Arabia: 13,000 General Mountague, 6,000 casualties, 7,000 alive
It was an Equestrian victory, but the factors remain debated by historians to this day. Some attribute Alternia’s presence and combat prowess as key. Others say that Equestrian training and the skill of their commanders - such as General Eumenes, won the day. I personally think that it was a combination of factors, but the tactical decisions made by Princess Alternia, Princess Blueblood’s, and Eumenes’s were key to swaying the battle to Equestria’s favor.
Regardless of who or what was responsible for Equestria’s victory, the road to the capital of Breeghdad was now open.
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Awaken, my masters.
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9601382
I am so confused XD
9601391
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this is literally me
I always enjoy these chapters. The battle line pics help immencely visualise what is happeneing, so thank you for the extra effort :)
as a side note every time i see this...
I see this guy in charge...
i.etsystatic.com/8880121/d/il/d1a780/1128957819/il_340x270.1128957819_c4be.jpg?version=0
who knows, he is in charge of the arty!