Romanovan War of Independence (The Green North)

The Romanovan War of Independence represented the far northern front of the Russian Civil War that had broken out against the war-weary and fractured. Bolshevik forces had risen against the administration of in the, prompting a national struggle between the Russian  and  factions. The situation was no different in Russian-controlled Greenland, where social tension lingered between loyal colonists and dissidents exiled there by the Russian monarchy. Stoked by the Russian Revolution and flooded with refugees from the mainland, Russian Greenland would erupt in war between Reds and Whites as well, ending in the independence of Romanova.

Background
Greenland was the last region of the former Russian Empire to break out into conflict because of the Civil War. Several members of the ruling Russian-Greenland Company known as the "Group of Four" hoped to restore Tsar Nicholas II to the throne of Russia. The Group's leader Oleg Yurievsky-Oldenburg sent the Russian-Greenland Legion under the command of General Konstantin Arafimov to aid the Whites in first defeating the Reds and then pushing for a re-establishment of the Russian monarchy. The Russian-Greenland Legion by most accounts performed admirably, with fewer counts of anti-semitism or looting recorded compared to other White units.

While numerically too few to change the war in the White's favor, the Greenlandic Legion was crucial in the rescue of Nicholas II and his family during Operation Savior of Man. However, the decision to evacuate the Tsar to Greenland also had adverse consequences. While his rescue from certain death was widely celebrated throughout the world, there were many in Russian Greenland that thought him a murderer and traitor. The decision of the Russian-Greenland Company in September of 1917 to install the Tsar as the head of a provisional government, although approved by nearly 80% of the population in a referendum, was considered unacceptable by many of Russian Greenland's radical community.

In addition, many refugees flocked to Greenland to escape the Civil War. The Russian-Greenland Company could not effectively provide all of the refugees with adequate housing, resulting in numerous slums within major cities that were unclean and unable to withstand the harsh northern winters. The largest slum occurred in the city of Albanov with nearly 10,000 refugees and little Company control within. As a result, sympathies for the Bolsheviks began to grow, in and out of the slums. Protestors and beggars were often beaten by police or soldiers in Company employ, further exacerbating tensions.

War
The war in Greenland is traditionally believed to have begun on September 15th, 1917. Two weeks earlier, on September 1st, Nicholas II had accepted the position of leader of the provisional government of Russian Greenland. In response, prominent Russian Greenlander and secret Bolshevik Anatoly Dendarov led a march of dissidents and refugees in Pelevievo's main square demanding the resignation of Nicholas II, Yurievsky-Oldenburg, and the implementation of a "People's government". Company militia dispersed the protesters and gunfire, believed to be accidental, rang out, causing the protest to become a riot with casualties on both sides.

After hearing of the outbreak of violence and at the urging of Dendarov, numerous other uprisings occurred. Local police and militia garrisons in the cities of Albanov, Badygin, and Kolomeitsev were quickly overrun by Red militias while Dendarov formed the Committee of Greenlandic Workers and Peasants and sought assistance from Lenin in Russia. Within a week, Dendarov was proclaimed Chairman of the Greenlandic Communist Party and declared the establishment of the Greenland Soviet Republic from the city hall of Albanov. Prominent revolutionary Feodor Zubrov began building a Northern Red Army and prepared to invade the rest of the Russian-Greenland Company. The first formal battle of the war was the Skirmish at Nevets, where Zubrov and his men drove out a group of Company policemen and militia from Nevets, a small town on the road to the city of Lvovsky