Why Enzim Won

Why Enzim Won

Elisio Goçero, published 791 (2816 CA)

Few debate that the Enzimian Wars were one of the most important and influential series of events in the last 700 years, affecting every aspect of life and culture, but many wonder just how a city state that outlawed magic managed to topple one of the oldest and most powerful empires in history to become its successor. The question of why Enzim won is really two questions: why the Enzimians won, and why the Furanists won. Of course, these two questions are intertwined and their answers relate to and rely on each other.
Why the Enzimians won is the simpler and more obvious of the questions. The Enzimians were facing a weak and divided enemy in the Varaso Empire. Since the reign of Maximillian proved to essentially be the last gasp of a strong and united empire, Varas had been preoccupied with various revolts and rebellions throughout its territory. The Enzimians entering into an alliance with the Taminils in the north, and the neutral Dacians in the east and Chazhdurms in the southeast further taking Varaso attention and military power, meant that the Enzimians never had to contend with the full might of the Varaso military. For much of the early fighthing, the Varasos didn’t think of the Enzimians as a big threat, so they dispatched small forces and sub-par leadership, allowing the Enzimians and early lead and a foothold into Elicia. The second, and most obvious cause was gunpowder weapons. Gunpowder had been discovered in Enzim centuries prior and had been a closely guarded secret of the Furanist church, and Enzim had seldom used it in anger until the invasion of Varas (four accounts of cannons being used in naval skirmishes are recorded), meaning its applications on the battlefield were untested and no one had any idea how to prepare for or counter its use. When the Enzimians turned their early gunpowder weapons on the Varasos, they had no idea how to counter them. As for the lack of magic on the side of the Enzimians, while a Varaso war mage would have certainly been a more powerful and formidable battlefield presence than an Enzimian arquebusier, the war mage represented decades of training and expertise not easily replaced, while a whole company of arquebusiers could be equipped and trained from peasant levies in a matter of weeks. Enzim’s coastal location and early capture of the island of Tassia prevented a naval blockade which might have prevented the sulphur and saltpetre shipments from Tira Vella that Enzim relied upon for its gunpowder, and so the Enzimians marched further and further into Elicia from the south while their Taminil allies hammered Varas from the north.
The victory of the Enzimians also relied upon the rapid spread and adoption of Furanism before and during the wars. The most important aspects for the rapid adoption of Furanism were its bans on both slavery and magic. These prohibitions made it attractive and popular among the lower classes. The ban on slavery obviously meant it would be popular among slaves, but by the time of the Enzimian wars, slavery was a relatively small institution in Varaso society, meaning the real driver was magic. This is an oversimplification of course, but as for why the ban of magic would have been looked well upon by the lower classes requires a look at the entire Common Age up to that point. Magic was, of course, discovered from the left behind fragments of elven culture, and to some extent the dwarves, so what was available was essentially up to fate. It was also difficult to learn and could be very dangerous, both to the practitioner and those around them. This danger led to things like the Century Without and Autumn which precipitated the Fey Wars and the eventual Burning of the Feywild, times which were extremely difficult on all, but especially rural and lower class populations. Essentially, magic was historically the almost exclusive purview of the upper classes and seldom benefited the lower classes. When the lower classes were exposed to magic, it was usually a negative experience. Combine this with the general societal unrest and declining standards of living at the start of the Enzimian Wars, and there was a great deal of resentment among the lower classes towards the nobility and priestly classes. Peasant revolts had become a common occurrence in the century or so leading up to the Enzimian Wars, and Furanism provided a very attractive belief set to the angry peasant. It told them that magic was evil, and that the gods they worshipped, the gods of their priests who could do little to make their lives better, were false or evil as well. It’s important that Furanism didn’t discount the existence of the old gods, but said they were real, and that they were the cause of the evils in these people’s lives. Furanism scapegoated the old gods, and by proxy, this scapegoated the upper classes that the peasants so maligned. The Enzimians in their invasion were able to take all this fomenting unrest and anger and hone and focus it from disorganised peasant rebellions that could be easily suppressed into a proper revolt and military campaign, combined with the incredible levelling power of gunpowder. Enzim fed its armies from the eager peasantry of Varas, also robbing Varas of many potential conscripts.