The Great War of Size

"BIgly af; saxe was small but he got what was coming to him in the end (in more ways than one)"~Historians of size

The Great War of Size (known by Saxites as the "War of Sizeite Aggression") was a conflict between the Sizeite Dominion and neighboring Saxedom. The war began after Saxe (the tyrannical ruler of Saxedom) betrayed his allies, the Sizeite Brotherhood, during a religious ceremony known as "El Juanito." (for more information see "Saxe") The Great War of Size would come to involve nations and peoples as far flung as Jizzrelia and the Bubacites, and was the largest scale military conflict of the Third Age.

The Early Days of the War
After Saxe's betrayal of the Brothers at El Juanito

The First Invasion of Saxedom (see "Fools Gold")
In the aftermath of Saxe's opening offensive, the Sizeite populace was in a general state of panic; each feared his own village would be the next target for one of Saxe's merciless raids. However, the speed and intensity of these early Saxite attacks disguised Saxedom's true weakness at this stage of the war: While he did possess superior numbers, Saxe's forces were disorganized and poorly equipped (and poorly paid, obviously). Also, Saxe gained his numerical advantage due to a reliance on conscription; thus the bulk of his forces were composed of inexperienced peasants, cruelly forced into service under threat of imprisonment in Saxe's notorious dungeons. Most importantly, Saxe's armies lacked reliable supply chains, and therefore were incapable of sustaining a full-scale, long-term invasion of Sizeite territory. Because of this, Saxe withdrew his forces back into Saxedom once they had finished terrorizing the Sizeite border villages. The Sizeite War Council determined that a response must be made before Saxe had time to prepare a true invasion force. The Brothers devised a plan to trap Saxe, and triumph over his numerically superior force. The Sizeites exploited Saxe's reckless overconfidence in the power of his size, and lured him into a cunning trap. They assembled the Holy Sizeite Army, a mighty host of 420,690 sizely crusaders eager to purge the land of Saxe's heretical filth. Brother Owen also mobilized the rural militias, which were thirsty af for revenge against Saxe for raping their villages. The bulk of the Sizeite forces laid an ambush from prepared positions, while the Sizeite commanders marched into Saxite territory with only a single legion. When Saxe rode out to meet this invading legion, it feigned a retreat, and Saxe took the bait, and the main Sizeite forces sprung the trap: The Sizeite long spear cavalry led a devastating charge into Saxe's now-exposed rear. The inexperienced Saxite conscripts panicked, and broke into a rout. With this, the Sizeites achieved their first decisive victory of the war.

African and Jizreli Campaigns
Saxe raped like a billion jizreli to death, meanwhile buba the big came through for the Sizeites

The Battle of Big Bridge
The Battle of Big Bridge is widely regarded as the central turning point of the Great War, and was notable for being Trump's first direct appearance in Magnitudo. Saxe's army returned from the Jizreli Campaign reinforced by his new KKKite allies, and in high spirits (the sack of Amuak Alabingsayhabalagshobaz had yielded vast troves of plunder, so Saxe's troops actually got paid for once lol). But the Brothers of Size had new allies too - the African legions of Bubacarius Maximus (The Salty) and the fearsome Brandon Brigade. Having already secured a foothold in Saxe's territory thanks to their earlier victories (see "The First Invasion of Saxedom"), the Sizeite commanders decided to press deeper into Saxedom and seize the mountainous region known as The Reach. The Holy Sizeite Army marched on Big Bridge, a narrow mountain pass which was key to penetrating The Reach. The Sizeite generals planned to meet with Brandon's Brigade at Big Bridge, and from there advance into Inner Saxedom as a combined force. Unfortunately for the Sizeites, Saxe's scouts had already spotted Brandon's Brigade and laid an ambush (baiting Brandon with a buy 1 get 2 free sale on 3DS games). Brandon was captured, and confessed the Brothers' plans (after enduring days of unspeakable torture in the Saxite Dungeons). Saxe quickly moved on Big Bridge himself, and intercepted the Holy Sizeite Army when they arrived. The Sizeites employed a Nutsack Defense formation, and were able to hold off the superior Saxite force for some time. However, the odds against them were great and after many long hours of fighting the Sizeite army had been pushed almost to the edge of a vast canyon. But, at the last moment a band of Saxite-allied mercenaries under the great Lord Trump decided to mutiny, as Trump determined that the Sizeite cause was far bigger than Saxe's. Positioned as Saxe's rearguard, Trump struck Saxe in his most tender spot. Saxe's forces were now themselves trapped, stuck between the near-impenetrable Nutsack Defense and the near-unstoppable Trumpite onslaught. Saxe himself managed to escape, along with his personal bodyguards and several fortunate infantry regiments. The majority of his army, however, was completely destroyed, including the powerful KKKite Grand Cyclopes (the mighty giants were pushed into the canyon by Trump's bigly pikemen). While Saxe had kept substantial militia garrisons stationed in Inner Saxedom as reserves, he had lost his only army capable of besting the Holy Sizeite Army in open battle. This decisively turned shifted the balance of power in the Sizeites' favor, and permanently ended Saxite hopes of invading Sizedom again.

The Battle of the Sanctum
While Saxe was no longer capable of launching major offensives after his defeat in The Reach (see "The Battle of Big Bridge"), he still had one last trick up his sleeve. In the aftermath of Big Bridge, the Gluon ordered his remaining forces to withdraw to Inner Saxedom, and defend its major cities (particularly Bagacum, Saxe's now-vunerable capital). Having once been a member of the Sizeite Priesthood, Saxe knew that after a victory as grand as Big Bridge, the Brothers of Size were bound to return home and hold a festival in honor of Size to thank him for their good fortune. They would be accompanied by a retinue of High Priests and top generals, but would leave their troops closer to the front so that they could renew the offensive once the celebrations had concluded. This would leave the Sizeite leadership unusually exposed - perfect targets for the kind of sneaky, covert operations which were the Gluon's specialty. Saxe created a taskforce of elite operatives, which he led on a secret mission to eliminate Sizeite High Command. This bold plan almost worked - Saxe's force (Small Team Six) successfully infiltrated Kappastrano Province and stormed the Sanctum of Size in a deadly surprise attack. Never before had smallbarians entered the Sanctum; this was a truly unprecedented act of desecration. Saxe's raiders killed a number of important Sizeite leaders (most notably Jared the Calrissian and Daichi the Racially Insensitive), and destroyed much of the Sanctum (the Hall of Size, and even parts of the Inner Sanctum). They also slaughtered the Holy Cocks, which is like really? Even for Saxe thats a dick move. However, Saxe also lost some of his finest warriors, including Andrew Mah the Very Racially Insensitive and the foul beast known as "Saxe's Hound." These losses unnerved Saxe (being a fucking small), and he aborted the mission. While the Sizeites suffered greatly, the Battle of the Sanctum (known to Saxites as Operation Saxe Is So Big For Thinking Of This) failed to deliver the kind of crippling blow Saxe hoped that it would. Although they lost many a good comrade, the Brothers of Size lived on to fight another day.

Bagacum Campaign
If Bagacum is taken from the Saxites, we can split all Saxedom in half, like Brandon’s ass last night” - Cooper 5:8

By the year, the Great War was drawing to a close. The Saxite Army had been crippled at Big Bridge, and Sizeite control of key mountain fortresses in the Reach precluded any counteroffensive by the Saxite reserves. The Saxite Navy was tied up in Jizrelia, still loading up on booty from Saxe's campaign there. Thus, seven divisions of fresh Bubacite and Shaftite n troops were able to sail unimpeded across the Anime Ocean to land in Sizedom. With these new reinforcements, the Holy Sizeite Army was ready to launch a final push and seize the Sack of Saxedom. With close to a million men in arms, the combined Sizeite-Bubacite-Shaftite army seemed virtually unstoppable. But Saxe still had a few tricks left up his sleeve...

Sizeite Mobilization
After three months of preparation, the Holy Sizeite Army departed the Reach. Brother Cooper led ten divisions through the Grig-Grog Pass, exiting the mountains in the Northeast Sack. Meanwhile, Brother Owen marched straight into the heart of the Sack, with fifteen divisions at his side. Brother Coulson shored up the Sizeites' right flank with another ten divisions of his own.

At the onset of the campaign for Bagacum, the Holy Sizeite Army numbered 769,000 men. Under the leadership of Lord Commander Bubacarius Maximus the Salty and Great War Chief Shaka Hulu, an additional 200,000 African troops were marching to take position at the SIzeite rear, along with the Chosen Legion of 75,000 Sizeite Holy Warriors, commanded by the High Priest Nemo himself. The Saxeites had learned to fear these blood-thirsty zealots, and had nicknamed them the "Booty-Bombers."

The Siege of Bagacum
The three pronged Sizeite army advanced through the Sack, taking great care not to damage farmland and engage in excessive looting. The Brotherhood was now in a position to fully conquer Saxedom, and formally annex it after the war. Saxeite lands were soon to be Sizeite lands, and the Sizeite leadership feared that an "overenthusiastic" campaign in the Sack would make postwar reconstruction difficult. Saxe, however, had few qualms about damaging resources, and waged a bitter campaign of attrition to hamper the Sizeite invasion. By the time Sizeite troops arrived in the Sack, the once-abundant fields of Saxedom's agricultural heartland had been reduced to a charred wasteland, dotted with booby-traps and pockets of resistance organized by Saxeite guerrillas. Small Team Six, in particular, launched highly disruptive hit-and-run style raids, delaying the Sizeite advance by several weeks.

In this time, Saxe had confiscated the entirety of Saxedom's grain supply (which was deeply diminished due to Saxeite attrition). The resulting famine would be remembered by Sizeite historians as one of Saxe's most atrocious war crimes, and resulted in the conviction and execution of five top Saxeite officials during the Saxemburg War Crime Tribunals after the war.

In    , roughly a month after they had departed from the Reach, the Sizeite forces reached the gates of Saxe's capital, Bagacum. They encircled the high-walled citadel, and dug in for a siege. The Sizeite strategy called for a protracted siege, with the expectation that Saxe would realize the hopelessness of his situation and surrender. But the Sizeite War Council had underestimated Saxe's genius for siege defense (and ruthless nature). Despite their serious use of attrition, the Saxeite forces had managed to secure more than four times as many food provisions as the Sizeites had anticipated. The Sizeites had not prepared for such a lengthy siege, and they were unable to requisition supplies from the surrounding countryside, thanks to Saxeite burning of nearby cropland. A direct assault would be risky, but it appeared the Sizeites' only option.

To make things worse, Nemo's Legion failed to arrive at the Sizeite camp outside Bagacum. Unbeknownst to the other Sizeite generals, Nemo had fallen prey to a Saxeite booty trap; the handiwork of Small Team Six (which remained a formidable unit, despite its loss in the Battle of the Sanctum). The Sizeites had no choice but to attack Bagacum directly, and to do so before their supplies ran out.

The Battle of Bagacum
The Sizeite attackers held two main advantages going into the Battle of Bagacum. Even without Nemo's valiant legion, the Sizeite forces possessed superior strength heading into the battle. They vastly outnumbered the Saxeites, and possessed high morale, believing the war to be almost finished.

The Sizeite forces also possessed a fair amount of artillery, as they had planned a bombardment of Bagacum to weaken enemy morale and force a Saxeite surrender. However, the Sizeites lacked siege towers or battering rams, as they had not planned on launching a direct assault.

On the morning of     , the battle began. The Sizeite attackers aimed to blast a hole in Bagacum's mighty walls, unleashing a barrage of artillery fire and pure size-force. But Saxe had, like, a surprising amount of counterplay. He used what was left of his size to create a Shield of Small surrounding the fortifications, which forced the Sizeite bombardment to a halt. There was a brief lull in the fighting, as the Sizeite commanders pondered their next move. At some point, it is believed that they received a special delivery from the Shrekite swamps, containing a mysterious secret weapon.

After a few hours pause, the battle resumed with a massive Saxeite barrage. The Saxeite volley would have hit the Size-Keepers themselves, but for the timely intervention of Daichi the Racially Insensitive, a priest and martyr of Size who had been recently reincarnated as a SizeBorg. For Daichi's heroism, he was awarded the Brandonic Star (one of the most prestigious Sizeite medals) and promoted to general.

At this point, the tide of battle turned. Sizeite forces, inspired by Brother Cooper's "Quarter Inch" battle cry, pressed the attack and, using the Magnum Sack of Size (the mysterious weapon believed to originate from Shrek's Swamp), they punched a gap in Bagacum's defenses. Sizeite soldiers flooded through the opening, and seized control of the Gatehouse. Once the city's gates were opened, Brother Cooper's divisions pushed into the heart of Bagacum, fighting bitterly from street to street. Saxe deployed one of his notorious Small-Beasts to stop them, but it was slain by Brother Cooper. Bubacarius Maximus scaled the walls with Oonga Boonga Long Neck (his steed, a large giraffe), and Brother Owen brought up the rear. Brother Coulson, wielding the Sack of Size, blasted open another breach in Bagacum's southernmost quadrant, and moved to outflank Saxe from the right. Saxeite defenders retreated before the Sizeite onslaught, and rallied at the high-walled Tower of Saxe. Coulson challenged the Saxeite king to a duel of size, which Saxe was honor-bound to accept. He lost the exchange, but was saved by the last-minute arrival of Shrek, who had marched on Bagacum with a host of Shrekite warriors.

The fighting had evolved into a three-way battle for control of the Magnum Sack, centered on a duel between the Brothers of Size, Shrek, and Saxe. Saxe attempted to gain the upper hand by wielding a decoy of the Sack, but revealed his ruse when it was clear that Shrek would defeat him. The Ogrelord then turned his attention to the Size-Keepers, and wrested the Sack from their grip. However, upon opening the Sack, Shrek realized he had been triple-crossed by the Gluon. Saxe's "decoy" was in fact the real Sack, while the one in possession of the Brothers was a trap-Sack filled with deadly sizelessness. Shrek was destroyed by the Fake Sack's load, and his leaderless troops fled the battlefield. The Dominion of Size was victorious, but in the chaos Saxe had slipped away with the Sack.

The War's Aftermath
The Brothers' triumph at Bagacum marked the end of the war, as Saxedom's capital lay firmly in Sizeite hands. With Saxe now a fugitive, command of the defeated Saxeite forces fell to Colonel Bigum Bigrouoly, the highest-ranking Saxeite officer who remained. Despite his name, Bigrouloly was by all accounts a very small man, and he quickly surrendered to the Sizeite conquerors. Lesser Saxeite commanders, however, withdrew into the countryside to plan a guerrilla campaign of resistance. Sizeite High Command feared that the Saxeite populace might rise against their occupiers, if pro-Saxe guerrillas stirred up an insurrection. After all, Saxe himself remained at large (figuratively speaking, as he was in fact quite small), and he could hypothetically be used as a symbol to rally resistance. Thus, in order to maintain the hard-won peace, the Brotherhood of Size offered up an official armistice agreement which they hoped would convince the Saxeite remnants to lay down their arms.

69/420 Compromise
Most historians of the war conclude that the Sizeites needn't have worried so much about post-war Saxeite resistance. The people of Saxedom were tired of war, and they proved unreceptive to slogans like "Saxe Will Rise Again" and the somewhat blunter "Ayo Fuck Size lmao." Realizing that they lacked popular support, pro-Saxe guerrillas reluctantly agreed to negotiate a surrender. (Nevertheless, Saxe's most hardcore devotees would fallaciously claim for years that "there was never a formal surrender")

The resulting agreement, known as the "69/420 Compromise," granted the Sizeites full sovereignty over Saxeite lands, in return for a degree of autonomy over local decisions. "Saxedom" was no more; in its place was the new Sizeite province of "Greater Sizedom." The Saxeite colonies in Jizrelia, Andrew's Island and New Saxedom (later known as "The Desolation") were also annexed, and renamed Sizerelia, Axel Island (later renamed "Sizulate Island") and New Sizedom. But the real meat of the treaty was the "69/420" clause: 69% of all ex-Saxeite subjects would have to convert to Size, and in return the Sizeite Treasury provide the new provincial government of Greater Sizedom with a small loan of 420 million dollars to rebuild their devastated homeland. Finally, the Compromise established a Special Tribunal in the city of Saxemburg, charged with investigating and prosecuting Saxeite war crimes. After Saxemburg was liberated on the march to Bagacum, Sizeite soldiers had discovered human experimentation in the city's prisoner-of-war camps, conducted by Saxe's Minister of Science, Dr. Munchicus Muldo. Thus, the Sizeites found it fitting to establish a war crimes tribunal at the site of Saxe's most unspeakable abuses.