“From a tactical perspective, fighting in one’s home ground was always the superior option. One would be more familiar with the terrain, have support from the local populace, and the morale benefit from fighting to defend one’s home.
From a strategic point of view, however, it was instead better to fight in someone else’s territory. Wars were destructive to the environment. More than a few areas known for its prosperity or abundance had been rendered down to wasteland or even burned down to the ground in the course of wars that ook place there.
While one sacrificed certain tactical benefits by fighting outside their home ground, it also spared one’s own territory from being made a victim in the process, arguably a reasonable exchange of benefit.” - Karina Ivo Louade, general and strategist from Dvergarder, circa 208 FP.
Even with the plan decided, moving an army was not a task that could be done in haste, especially when the army was well in the six digits in numbers.
It took the coalition army another day to finish their preparation for the march, and it was only in the morning two days after the battle that they marched out from the defenses they had manned for the past few weeks. The ten thousand left behind by Duke Banitu would take care of Kolitschei’s defenses, as well as handle other things like tidying up the battlefield.
There were thousands of enemy corpses to deal with after all, which after being stripped of all their valuables were simply dumped together in mass graves. The defending troops cared enough to take their dead home for burial, but the enemy did not get such privileges. In fact, if it were not for long established health practices, some would have left them to rot instead.
It was already a mercy to bury them, which was the chosen method because it would be risky to burn the corpses in a funeral pyre given the location. Too much risk of the forest catching fire if things were done that way.
The majority of the army, forces from Algenverr, Jonkver, Kolitschei, and Knallzog, all marched westwards, while their combined cavalry contingent – which as it turned out was a bit shy of the expected thirty thousand at only twenty-seven thousand – rode northwards to Lovia-Hosberg instead. Out of all the roads between Lovia-Hosberg and its neighboring nations the one that led to Kolitschei was in the best condition and most suitable for large-scale traversal, hence the cavalry’s choice to take that road.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Given the stable state of the fighting at Lovia-Hosberg, it was a given that the enemy forces there – a meager fifty thousand – was mostly sent to keep the forces there busy rather than to go for a full invasion. Damien’s troops and Lovia-Hosberg’s own soldiers kept them at bay, and the hope was for the cavalry reinforcements to catch the enemy off guard before they received news of the victory at Kolitschei.
Even with their speed, though, part of the escaping enemies were from their cavalry, and apparently some of those thought of their compatriots even as they ran away. By the time the reinforcement’s cavalry detachment reached the battlefield in Lovia-Hosberg, they discovered that the Imperial forces had withdrawn just the day before.
The local defenders had not dared to chase, and only after some reassurance agreed to contribute to the cause. The cavalry detachment left Lovia-Hosberg with an additional forty thousand soldiers, twenty thousand from Lovia-Hosberg, while the rest were Damien’s detachment of troops. Damien had left his injured to rest and recuperate and only took the rest with him.
From the northern state they rushed after the escaping enemy army but failed to catch them due to the delay along the way. From what the detachment force could tell, the fifty thousand strong enemy force that was in Lovia-Hosberg were not strong, but it was still annoying that they managed to retreat in an orderly manner.
Several days later, the group from Lovia-Hosberg met with the main group at the western regions of Kolitschei, at the fort where the Kolitscheians first made their stand before the rest came to help. The enemies stationed to garrison that fort turned out to have fled as well, having heard the news of their loss from escaping compatriots, and it was assumed that the fifty thousand strong enemy force from Lovia-Hosberg likely managed to slip away before the coalition force could cut off their retreat.
Because of that, they chose to gather and wait for the rest at the fort, which provided a convenient place to base themselves in for the time being. The gathered coalition forces numbered around a hundred seventy five thousand strong, but they knew that their enemy also had at least as much waiting for them, further west in Gestis territory which they had conquered already.
That was not considering the likely possibility that the enemy forces might have sent more troops from their larger, southern detachment to help the northern one. From all reports they received so far, the Imperial army’s southern detachment had a slight advantage over the coalition troops especially since former Duke Emil Bostvan’s death in battle. It was only the arrival of reinforcements from Knallzog that stabilized the situation.
As it was, sometimes having too many troops might not affect a battle by much. Only so many troops could be fighting at a time, after all, with having more at times only meaning that one had more spares to send out when those in front died or were forced to withdraw. The Imperial army could very well send another fifty thousand troops or more to the north without affecting the progress of the fighting in the south and everybody knows it.
Worse was how they would also have the advantage of the fortifications they conquered in Gestis – and more importantly, that of Oleynuos – which would give the invaders the advantage of defensive fortifications this time around. That made things harder for the coalition forces to a degree, which was why they halted to prepare first.