Fifth Bastion War

Beginning: 1,192, Battle of Wayland End: 1,196, Invasion of Bescane Place: Manda’toma and Moffist Bastion Outcome: Stalemate, lingering animosity between both nations Major battles: see emboldened words below

COMBATANTS
	Moffist Bastion	Manda'toma	Mandalorian Exiles (late war)
COMMANDERS
	Grand Admiral Willem Stert	Mandalore the Provider	Zrad Rezer (late war)
	Admiral Stellos Geldair	Zrad Rezer (early/mid-war)
	Grand Moff Valavai Tarses	Sev Rezer

Although the reasons for the conflict vary from source to source, with both the Moffists and Mandalorians blaming the other to different extents. Of equal or if not more importance, the Second Outer Rim Conflict, being waged between the reformed Outer Rim Alliance and their allies against the Third Galactic Republic, had engulfed many sectors of space, particularly near Manda’toma’s own borders.

What is universally accepted about the start of the fifth of the Bastion Wars, however, is that Bastion made the first move when Grand Admiral Willem Stert – Supreme Commander of the Imperial Bastion Fleet – besieged the Wayland system with three of the most advanced Star Destroyers of the time, the Imperial VI-class. In turn, Manda’toma launched a counter-offensive, making the Battle of Wayland the first-time showing of the Ge’tal sur’haii class of Mandalorian battleships, who narrowly lifted the siege and pushed the invaders back.

A master strategist, this was Grand Admiral Stert’s plan, luring the Mandalorians into believing the Imperials were interested in launching an assault on their western fringes as Stert regrouped with a splinter force to attack Taris. Thinking this was their plan, Mandalore the Provider led a massive fleet towards Taris, instead only finding a minor Imperial fleet (that quickly fled after a short engagement) and leaving Mandalore itself open to a large assault by the primary Bastion fleet, led by Stert’s direct subordinate, Admiral Stallos Geldair.

The Sacking of Mandalore was catastrophic but brief, and was successful in leaving the Mandalorians in a tricky situation as Geldair and Stert’s fleets rearranged themselves for the next stage of the Imperial offensive. Having adequately traumatised the core southern belt of Manda’toma, the Bastion forces were in a better position to launch the two-pronged attack upon the northern reaches; with reinforcements from Bastion, Admiral Geldair’s objective was to obliterate the Horuz shipyards whilst Stert would claim the industrial world of Ciutric, which would quickly become the flashpoint of the entire war, which would last an additional four years.

The Mandalorians were able to reclaim the Horuz system even though the majority of the shipyards had already been destroyed by Geldair’s forces, but their counteroffensive to the Occupation of Ciutric was a failure; Stert – whilst still fighting a ground war with the remaining Mandalorian defenders – was able to have his fleet repel any attack Mandalore sent his way.

Claiming much of the northern regions closest to their borders in Manda’toma, Bastion quickly fortified the captured worlds of Akuria, Corvis Minor and Ciutric, with the final becoming their main base and the key to their success in the war. Nevertheless, they faced a major threat in the shape of the Mandalorian Knights, a sect of Jedi devoted to the Mandalorian way and based on Ciutric that Grand Admiral Stert struggled with for a long time.

Eventually, after several successful raids on the Mandalorian-held world of Myrkr (where Mandalorians often hunted and trained vornksyrs as hunting animals), Stert managed to employ ysalamiri in the field, negating the advantage of the Force the Knights had over his forces, which also aided in numerous successful repulsions of Mandalorian hopes to reclaim their planet from Stert.

For a time, there was a lot of back-and-forth in what became known as the Taris Campaigns, whereby Bastion would hold the world for a time, and then the Mandalorians again, and then the Imperials once more, before the Mandalorians were finally successful in taking and retaining the ecumenopolis, forcing them back into Bastion space.

Upon realising Stert’s use of Myrkr, the Mandalorians began a blockade that the Imperials never managed to break through, and was soon succeeded by another Mandalorian victory at Shaum Hii, but still left Manda’toma a divided place, and an area neither side was seemingly making any advance in.

Concocting a daring all-or-nothing plan that held to Mandalorian philosophy, the Invasion of Bescane was drawn up, in which nearly all Mandalorian forces would be centralised into one bulk, which would then launch a full-scale assault upon Bastion’s second planet, either being a mind-blowing success or leaving Manda’toma as a mere footnote in history. To the Mandalorians’ delight – and the Imperial’s utter surprise and dismay – the invasion was a resounding success, and not simply because of the size of the Mandalorian fleet.

Having been stirred by the now-ended Second Outer Rim Conflict, a large band of Mandalorian Exiles assaulted a Bastion fringe world. Fearing this to be the onset of an invasion with unknown numbers, Bastion’s leader, Grand Moff Valavai Tarses (under pressure from the Council of Moffs) ordered all non-occupying forces to return to Imperial space in preparation for a major conflict.

The Defence of Dubrillion was a success, routing the Exiles but at the cost of keeping Akuria and Corvis Minor, who quickly rebelled against what little occupation was left, but Bescane remained under Mandalorian rule.

The entire affair made it clear the Imperials were not as suicidally brave as their opponents, and they soon pushed for a ceasefire to a war that was quickly becoming another of the long line of stalemates that the Bastion Wars had become known as. Even so, the Fifth Bastion War, whilst achieving little in the end bar new and deeper animosities between the two nations, were a terrible blow to both the forces and populations of Bastion and Manda’toma, with an incredible loss of life.