Battle of Waldreich

"I was still in school at the time, but I'll never forget the images I saw on the news that day. The Belkans set off seven nuclear explosions on their own soil. Maybe their old militaristic leaders couldn't stand the idea of allied forces invading their land, and declared to the world that the land to the north was "the Holy Land of Belka"."

- Brett Thompson The battle of Waldreich was a military battle fought between the Allied Forces and the Belkan Federation in June 1995, at the height of the Belkan War. It was the final official conflict between both groups before the surrender of the Federation.

Siege of Sudentor
Following the liberation of Ustio in April 1995, the Allied Forces launched an offensive towards Belkan soil, penetrating the Belkan army's main lines of defense and capturing various major cities until the entirety of South Belka fell under their control. Between May 14 and June 4, the various areas that had been taken over by the Allies were declared as demilitarized areas, and all Belkan troops south of the Waldreich Mountains surrendered peacefully.

As June began, the Allies began operations in Nord Belka with the goal of dismantling the Belkan Army. Belkan survivors fled to the cities north of Waldreich to prepare for the Allies' invasion, one of which was the industrial town of Sudentor, in which troops secured weapons directly from the South Belka Munitions Factory. On June 5, three Allied groups besieged Sudentor to strike Belkan soldiers trapped within Waldreich, who intended to use the range as a final line of defense to prevent them from entering the north.

Nuclear attacks
The siege lasted until the next day, when the mercenary Galm and Crow teams were dispatched by Ustio to secure air superiority over Sudentor, being scheduled to meet up at Point 203, a set of coordinates in east Waldreich over the Stier Castle. At 14:50 PM, the two squadrons arrived at the site; however, problems briefly arised when Larry Foulke, who had become depressed after a fight with Patrick James Beckett over the nature of war during the siege of Hoffnung, lagged behind the rest of the troop.

As the pilots prepared to travel to Sudentor, a formation of B-52 and Bm-335 Lindwurm bombers carrying nuclear weapons in Ustio's direction was discovered by AWACS Eagle Eye, who directed them to an intercept vector. The worsening war situation in Belka caused their commanders to adopt a last measure strategy, ordering the use of nuclear weapons to destroy Belkan cities so they would not fall under Allied control. The first known such order was the release of a nuke over an unspecified town in South Belka by Wolfgang Buchner, who was shot down during Operation Battle-Axe and defected to Osea.

Both teams intercepted the bombers and began battling with the attack force, intent on halting a nuclear strike on Ustio. Shortly before the skirmish, a team of Belkan Air Force pilots learned of the nuclear plan and set off to stop them, arriving to Waldreich as Galm and Crow attempted to shoot them down. The bombers were ultimately downed over before abandoning the area.

Seven Pillars
Immediately after the bomber incident over Stier, the Belkan army detonated seven V1 nuclear weapons in towns across the Waldreich Mountains, one of which exploded near Point 203. The mercenary teams attempted to ascertain the situation as communications were overwhelmed by a heavy electromagnetic pulse. Miles north of the site, Joshua Bristow of the Wizard Squadron, which had vanished from the frontlines the previous day, contacted Foulke via radio, subtly offering him a chance to join A World With No Boundaries, the terrorist faction he was member of.

Disillusioned by the recent series of event, Larry decided to abandon the Allies and tried to kill Cipher. Eagle Eye, who was monitoring the incident, ordered him to stand down, but he pressed his assault before fleeing to Nord Belka and disappearing. Meanwhile, the Crow squadron flew north to get away from the Stier bomb site. Shortly after Pixy's betrayal, a force of Belkan Su-27s arrived to the area in search of Cipher, who defeated them all before returning to Valais Air Base.

Aftermath
The explosions at Waldreich, which came to be known as the "Seven Pillars of Belka", rendered a large strip of land in the mountain range inhabitable by radiation. Official sources placed the immediate death toll at 12,000. Within the next week, the government of Belka surrendered to the Allied Forces, and an interim government involving the Fatherland and Workers Party was placed.