I'm starting to edit a story of mine in which the characters embark on a war of liberation. I read the first draft all the way through today without editing it to get a proper feel for the flow, and while my characters do intend for it to be a very quick campaign, I feel like it's a bit rushed. Like it's missing something. I've already started to brainstorm some ideas about how to make things harder when it seems like I'm just letting everything go right for the characters, but even when I've fixed that, I'm not sure it will read right. In the book before it, they form an alliance with another country, who land at the start of this book and take the harbour with the help of my characters. They go on to travel across a forest to a fort on a mountain. Along the way, one of my protags is kidnapped and taken to the fort. They save him when he's carted away for execution and then turn around and attack the fort. They take it under their control. Then they descend the mountain range to the other side of the country, liberate a village, and go into the next one to do some spy work and convert people to their cause. They liberate all the towns and villages in their path as they travel to the castle, but not any of the others, because they are greatly outnumbered in terms of army sizes and wish to make the campaign end quickly by being tactical -- going straight to the castle in the capital and defeating the King of the enemy country, thus cutting the head off the snake. They believe that once they've done this, the rest of the towns and villages under enemy control will surrender because there is no one to guide them. (The entirety of the enemy country also ends up surrendering, as the royal family have all been killed. Is this a realistic thing to happen?) Am I being paranoid, or is something missing here? Maybe it's the conquering-a-simple-route-to-the-castle thing...What are your thoughts?
I think that "no one to guide them" is unrealistic--there would be some sort of second in command, unless you've already made it a well-established fact that this army exists solely due to the leader's force of personality. I think that you'd still need to defeat the army. Now, if the next in command (King's son, king's brother, regent for the king's child) were more amenable to negotiation, or an actual ally, that could be more convincing. Edited to add that I know nothing, nothing, about armies and wars, so if someone who does know about them disagrees with me, ignore me.
I'll agree with Chicken in that no one to guide them is unrealistic. Even if the entire royal family is gone, there will be some powerful noble or popular commander in a position to take power. This could play a role in bringing the war to an end: maybe your protagonists know that the war is unpopular in the enemy nation, that there are nobles who would gladly make peace so they could consolidate power as the next ruling dynasty if the current one were extinct. It does seem like the campaign is too easy. Real wars do tend to be relatively one sided after a decisive point in the middle, but this doesn't make very good fiction. The thing that stuck out the most to me as off was your protagonists cutting a straight path to the capital, despite being outnumbered. It's possible if you have a large qualitative advantage, but even an inferior enemy can be troublesome if they're numerous. They can be in more places, and threaten critical locations as a way of forcing the attacker to turn back and save said location. Supply lines are always vulnerable; you can ditch them and live off the land, but then you're forced to send out foraging parties to gather supplies, and those can be attacked and defeated in detail. Laying siege while deep in enemy territory and outnumbered is also a dangerous thing. Either starving out a fortified location or taking it by storm consumes a lot of time. Time in which you're pinned to a single place, letting the enemy concentrate its forces against you. There's almost nothing worse than a relief army hitting you while you're besieging another force, though it is possible to win (see Alesia from Caesar's Gallic campaign, or Antioch during the First Crusade). Some possible solutions: since this is a war of liberation, popular insurrections could keep much of the enemy's superior numbers tied down. Laying siege to get at the king need not be necessary. Even into the age of gunpowder, monarchs commanding their armies in the field--and personally fighting--was quite common. History is full of kings (and a few queens) slain on the battlefield. All your protagonists need to do is force the king into an open battle and kill him there.
Okay, so now I'm thinking: they'll run into some trouble along the way as they move from the mountains to the capital as parts of the army from various other bases march out to them. I'll think on what will happen with the supply lines, too. And, because the enemy country called in a lot of reinforcements, once my characters have taken the castle they'll have wiped out a big part of the army, so when they find the next of kin -- a cousin or something, as the King and his sons have been killed -- he surrenders both because his army has taken such a blow and because he doesn't want this war. And, of course, so that he gets to rule. Unless, because my characters have won, THEY can rule over that country? Hmm… Anyway, does that sound any better?
the no one to guide them approach - which the military call a decapitation operation or decap only works when the control of the whole country is concentrated in one or a few people This happens sometimes in dictatorships as the dictator kills or banishes anyone capable of taking command and ruthlessly discourages initiative in their forces (for fear of being deposed). Iraq under Saddam Hussein was like that ... if we'd been able to assassinate Saddam the Iraqi regime would have crumbled. Another example is the plot of the Frederick Forsyth book Dogs of War To an extent this was also true of the Nazi's in WW2 although we'd have had to take out the entire high command group, just killing hitler wouldn't have achieved much if goebels, goering etc were still alive It wasn't on the otherhand true of the war in afghanistan - Killing Bin Laden didn't put AQ on its arse, killing Omar wouldn't have ended the Taliban. Personally if I was planning your campaign I'd have the small group of characters journey to the capital and assassinate the king and his close advisors before or at the same time the allied kingdom lands its assault troops.
Adding to @big soft moose : The thing to remember about a war of 'liberation' is that everyone has their own agenda. How disaffected/disillusioned/disgusted is the average citizen with their head of state/king? What constitutes 'average'? Average means that there are minima and maxima, extreme values at either end of the spectrum. And that means that a population won't (generally) all have the same opinions. There might be students who look for democracy, there might be merchants who want free trade and therefore plot with the neighbouring kingdom, there might be an ambitious soldier visiting his family who sees opportunity for advancement, either by handing over the traitors or by helping them, or... you get my point. Depending on how 'evil' the king is/was, the populace will help more or less. Or will even begin to fight against each other and then you'll have a really big mess on your hands
Or other forces who move into the power vacuum ... the liberation of Russia from the grip of the Czar led to a civil war between the white and red forces, and the eventual defeat of white Likewise the Arab spring has in many countries given IS the chance to attempt to seize power In your scenario the question of liberation vs occupation will be what the allied kingdom does next - ie what is in for them, do they stay and occupy ,or do they leave with an orderly hand over of power and if the latter to who and what do the liberators get out of it Also what does the kings army do - do they fight, do they disband, do they follow the lead of one of their generals.... you could easily exchange a king for a military dictator if the liberator can't handle the army The best thing would be if someone else is put on the throne ... or you could go through a transition like the aftermath of WW2 from wehrmact to Bundeswehr ...(or volksarmee in the east) however the Allies had overwhelming supremacy to do that, its difficult to do when the liberators don't have a firm grip n the force they are transitioning If you take a feudal approach so there isnt a large standing army, you have the issue of what the warrior class do... will they follow a new king ? or a republic ? or will they try to elect one of their own .... also will the peasantry rise up with the power above them removed... and having done so will they accept a new feudal leader ?
Or put a puppet on the throne but rule through military force, creating a Shogun/Emperor situation. And, in reference to using foreign troops: "Oh, you meant being liberated from your king? We thought you meant that, since our states are so culturally similar, we should liberate you into being part of our state." "But we have nothing in common though..." "What are you talking about? We fought together! Our troops occupying the strategically valuable places in your country prove it." "But." "Be quiet or they start to burn things down." And that's why don't let foreign troops occupy stuff while you're attempting a coup.
If it's a world where the feudal system is still the order of the day it's also worth considering that allegiance was to your direct overlord, not to an abstract 'nation state', so senior commanders simply deciding 'oh, dear, the king's snuffed it. Well, pack it in, lads, we've got a new boss!' is not as unthinkable as it seems today. Sure, you'll have those who remain loyal to the deposed king for a variety of reasons- particularly if they are worried about suddenly becoming less powerful, marginal nobility in a larger kingdom- but many others might take a more pragmatic approach.
Yes, indeed. This is part of the reason why feudal states often fragmented as a result of wars. While in theory support for your liege was absolute, in practice every fief had it's own leader who was looking out for their own. Especially when their top level liege died or was otherwise nobbled then it was common for the nobles to quietly exit stage left and the peasantry to sod off back to tilling the fields.
There are a couple ways I think you could go about this depending on how competent the enemy country's generals are. The first is a Napoleon-esque/Tannenburg strategy. This only works if the enemy's force is spread out. Assuming that the enemy country has not fully mobilized yet, then the forces will be more numerous total, but they will be spread amongst the fiefdoms of the enemy kingdom. The strategy calls for rapid marches to gain local superiority in numbers to crush the enemy piece meal. Things to consider should be if your army is disciplined enough to march at rapid paces for long periods of time (this could be a problem considering how most armies in feudal societies were not professional) and the absence of a baggage train. The army marches on its stomach and for many armies, this means a large baggage train carrying food and other supplies. These slow down armies so what Napoleon decided to do, was have his men live off the land (part of why his Russian invasion failed) and eliminate most of the train. This would be especially useful in the strategy mentioned above. The second strategy involves drawing the enemy into the mountains. You mentioned a fort on a mountain so you could bait the enemy with that. As the enemy army moves into the mountains, generally they will find it harder and harder to move food and water for their bigger army. From their you can use choke points and ambushes to whittle the enemy down and cut off his supplies. Once again, the army marches on its stomach and you could potentially force the army, led by multiple leaders form different fiefdoms to disperse under threat from starvation and demoralized from heavy losses. The third strategy could be to split your own forces up. This could be very dangerous and it is important to have experienced and levelheaded commanders when pulling it off. I've been reading a lot of Napoleon lately so this is another one of his. The overall strategy is to take a smaller portion of your army and make contact with the enemy's main body. The larger portion of your army can then take whatever the objective is (hopefully it isn't a siege and you have a more clever way of taking the castle because the enemy main body will learn of the siege and they can simply march back and relieve the castle. It is important that while the smaller portion of your army makes contact with the enemy main body, they must not fully commit. You want that smaller body to survive a longer period of time to keep the attention of the enemy main body longer as well as minimizing your own casualties I hope this gives you some ideas
There is a very good book called "Coup d'etat: A practical handbook" which talks through the process of taking over. Its an interesting read. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0674737261/?tag=writingfor07a-20 I think you need to remember that there are power and economic structures in place in any society. There are lots of people who might not like the current leaders but nevertheless do quite well out of the existing situation. You also get the various thugs/villains that look to profit/advantage themselves from chaos. Those villages to the east would like to be independent but the regional governor want to keep control of the important treacle mines in the area (or more accuratly the wealth they generate). The ethnic doobries in the south want to join with their kin in Greater Doubry. General Xantos thinks civil governments are too weak and the country needs the firm (but fair) grip of his hand. Meanwhile the Emperor of the Moon is worried about the impact on trade routes and the effect on the supply of his favourite licorice cigars. Queen Ambivili is funding three sets of rebels because instability in the region gives her a free hand with the other civil war in ... etc, etc
