Alalehzamin Security Line

The Alalehzamin Security Line is a planned defensive work that focuses on enhancing the security of the Benacian Union against the risk of instability in the frontier region between Alalehzamin and the Imperial County. It involves creating a network of defensive structures, including blockhouses, gun emplacements, fortified staging areas, air defence systems, and missile defence capabilities, to deter and repel any potential threat. The Alalehzamin Security Line aims to strengthen the southern flank of the Northern Banner Group and ensure the security of the Benacian Union.

The security line, once established, would augment the pre-existing network of turnpike bastions and panopticon sensor arrays.

Direction of the construction of the security line was vested in the Grand Commissariat of Benacia Command, with the work being undertaken by labour columns seconded from the Benacian Labour Reserve alongside auxiliaries mobilised for labour work under an instrument of government issued by the Szodan of Elluenuueq in the fifth month of 1730 AN.

Upon completion, the positions along the security line would be occupied by levies from the State Guard of Elluenuueq, supervised by blocking detachments from the General Inspectorate of Benacia Command.

Preparations

Two bailiwicks of Alalehzamin border onto the Imperial County, these being Naubandar and Ismailabad, with the River Elwynn constraining both to the south and west as well as the north and east. This resulted in a relatively narrow frontage, facing onto an area known in Shirerithian circles as "the Confluence".

Benacia Command military planners determined that a robust, in-depth defensive line was needed to secure the border with Shireroth. The Alalehzamin Security Line would comprise three successive fortification belts:

The Outer Security Belt

• A continuous line of blockhouses, pillboxes, and fire trenches just inside the Benacian border backed by minefields and wire obstacles
• Gun emplacements and static anti-tank weapons positioned to interlock fires
• Early warning sensors and surveillance outposts to detect Shirerithian forces massing
• Covered trench systems and hardened shelters to protect border troops

The Outer Security Belt would be the first line of resistance, designed to absorb and attrit an initial Shirerithian attack while allowing defenders to trade space for time.

The Infantry Defense Belt

• A scarp-like defensive ridge 10-15 km behind the Outer Belt comprising bunker complexes, hardened artillery positions, and anti-air sites
• Sheltered barracks/logistics areas to permit rapid reinforcement of the front line
• Integrated air defence battalions with SAMs and radar systems
• Mobile reserves of mechanised infantry and armor to counter-attack

This robust second belt would be the main defensive position, anchored on major towns and supply nodes. It would be tasked with halting and repelling the Shirerithian advance.

The Redoubt Line

• A final fallback position 25-30 km from the border comprising major fortresses and citadels.
• Capable of all-round defense with layered minefields and dragon's teeth obstacles
• Shelter areas for command/logistics plus repair/rearm facilities
• Medium/heavy artillery units including missile defense batteries

If the forward belts were overrun, this last defensive line would buy time for the full mobilisation of Benacian reserves and potential intervention by Raspur Pact allies.

Construction

Manpower for construction would come from penal labour reserves augmented by local civilian conscripts. Strict work schedules and contractor oversight would be implemented to meet deadlines. When completed, the three fortification belts would present a formidable challenge to any Shirerithian cross-border aggression.

Mobilisation of Elwynnese labour auxiliaries

With the formal decision to construct three belts of fortifications along the Shirerithian border, the Szodan of Elluenuueq invoked emergency conscription powers. Thousands of civilian laborers were to be mobilised to supplement the formations of the Benacian Labour Reserve.

In cities and towns across Elluenuueq's bailiwicks, conscription notices went out. All able-bodied adults between 16 and 60 years old, not subject to prior waves of conscription, were subject to impressment for construction duties. Detachments of the Corps of the Gentlemen-at-Cudgels, supported by the General Inspectorate of Benacia Command and the Commission for the Panopticon, were tasked with rounding up those attempting to evade the draft.

Families were torn apart as fathers, sons, and even some grandfathers were forcibly gathered and transported to muster points. Scenes of weeping wives and mothers clinging to their loved ones played out daily. But the demands of securing Benacia's frontier against potential aggression took precedence.

At the muster points, the conscripts were processed, issued tools and equipment, and subjected to basic training in earthworks, obstacle emplacement, and force protection. Living conditions in the hastily constructed labour camps were poor, with tight quarters, inadequate sanitation, and widespread disease.

The labourers were divided into crews and transported to worksites along the planned defensive belts. There they toiled relentlessly under the watch of military engineers from the Commissariat and civilian contractors provided by the Honourable Company. Shifting rocks, digging anti-tank trenches, laying wire obstacles - the work was brutally difficult.

Inadequate provisioning, bitter cold alternating with searing heat, and harsh authority took a heavy toll. Dozens perished from exhaustion, dehydration, or injuries. Unrest and riots broke out sporadically, which were savagely suppressed by overseers and cudgellers.

Deployment of labour columns

As the demand for manpower on the border fortification project intensified, the Benacian Security Council and Benacia Command turned to the vast pool of unfree labour under their control - the Benacian Labour Reserve. Within weeks, orders went out for 83 labour columns to be formed up and dispatched to Elluenuueq.

From penal colonies, re-education camps, and forced labour facilities across the Benacian Union, the columns were mustered. The echoing clanks of chain gangs being marched out of their compounds rang out. The muster included hardened convicts, political prisoners, debtors, condemned heretics, and those imprisoned for more nebulous infractions of the Union Covenant – over 50,000 souls were rounded up.

They were transported in tightly packed rail cars and trucks on grueling journeys to the Alalehzamin frontier. Upon arrival, the disheveled and emaciated laborers were segregated based on skills and physical evaluations into their designated columns.

Each 600-man column came under the brutal authority of a Warranted Column Officer - merciless disciplinarians empowered to employ whatever coercive means necessary to extract every ounce of effort. The officers reported to the implacable Warrant Holder Commandants overseeing the entire operation.

The camp conditions the labour columns were deployed into were characterised by squalor, disease, and deprivation. Food rations were meager, medical care non-existent. A culture of systematic dehumanisation, torture, and ritualised violence pervaded the camps to enforce productivity.

From before dawn's first light until long after dusk, the columns toiled ceaselessly in a massive churn of relentless construction activity. The skilled trades like engineers, masons and electricians designed and erected the bunker complexes, redoubts and command centers. The unskilled labour columns moved earth, dug trenches, and emplaced obstacles under pitiless overseers.

Any infractions or lapses, be they from insolence, exhaustion or simple mistakes, drew vicious punishments. Beatings with truncheons and rifle butts, stints in sweatboxes, or even summary executions were handed out callously to maintain discipline.

The steady stream of ambulances carting off the broken bodied, and of mortuary trucks collecting those worked to death, spoke to the horrors of the Labour Reserve's deployment. But it was a calculated cost the Benacian leadership was willing to accept to realise their vision of an impregnable frontier.