Kažlär Kïyal

Kažlär Kïyal was a Serpentine cavalry officer and resistance leader of Gožyar descent who served in the Serpentine Common Army, as well as the youngest Serpentine serviceman to serve during the First World War. Kïyal lied about his age to enlist in the Serpentine Common Army from Mardägal after the Equal Service Declaration on September 19, 1905 at the age of 14 and served until the conclusion of the war in 1914. He was the most decorated Gožyar soldier of the war and would later become a key figure of the so-called forgotten men, the name given to anti-Serpentine Gožyar formed in the 1920s, primarily composed of World War I veterans.

Kïyal took part in the famous 1915 Battle of Mardägal and later that same year founded the Gožyar Independence Army, which he would lead in conducting {{wp|asymmetric warfare]] against the Serpentine Commonwealth from 1915 until 1918, when it was broken up by Serpentine authorities. Kïyal, who successfully evaded capture upon the collapse of the Independence Army, would found the Secret Army in 1919, which would continue the insurrectionist activity of the Gožyar Independence Army under his leadership until shortly before his death in 1925. Kïyal is considered a {{wp|folk hero|national hero}} in the Gožyaries and one of the fathers of that nation's independence.

Biography
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Early Life
Kažlär Kïyal was born on November 6, 1890 in Rëzakär in the Serpentine Commonwealth. He was the first of seven children born to factory worker Valkaž Kïyal and his wife Ävita.

As a child, Kïyal was rather quiet and had trouble making friends, which often led to violent outbursts at home. At the age of 12, his father got him a job at the factory, but he was fired within six months after he stopped going into work. Kïyal would later write that it was "the most thorough whooping dad had ever given me" the day he got fired. In 1904, when Kïyal was 13 years old, his father died. It was at this point that he started spending more and more time away from home and eventually began running with local gangs. His sister Rëna would later recount in her biography of him, The Forgotten Man, how he would often come home covered in bruises and cuts, and hardly spoke to his mother or his siblings.

World War I
In September of 1905, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War and little over a year since the death of Valkaž Kïyal, the Serpentine Commonwealth passed the Equal Service Declaration, allowing all men full military service, regardless of ethnicity. On September 19, Kïyal lied about his age and enlisted in the Serpentine Common Army at just 14. He was assigned to the 45th Infantry Division under General !!!.

Battle of Mardägal
Following the conclusion of the war, the Serpentine Commonwealth found itself unable to pay out the promised pensions to its veterans in full. At the behest of Martic aristocrats, the pensions were distributed along ethnic lines, with Martes and Aquizireikigs being given priority. When Kïyal finally received his money, despite being given priority over most other Gožyars for his exemplary service, it amounted to less than ten percent of what he had been promised. When hundreds of veterans from the region surrounding his hometown of Rëzakär gathered in Mardägal in 1915 to demand what they were owed, he gladly participated. For several weeks, the veterans, joined by many more civilians, demonstrated in the city of Mardägal. When the Serpentine authorities finally addressed the crowds after almost a month, they promised that the veterans would have their due—though significantly reduced—by 1920. It was at this point that Kïyal delivered his famous "Too Little, Too Late" speech, whipping the demonstrators into a frenzy and ultimately inciting an outright battle. On January 28, 1915, Kïyal and the other gathered veterans, as well as some civilians, fired on the Mardägal capitol building.

The insurrectionists occupied the capitol building for two weeks, repelling several attempts by the local police and two by Serpentine forces to take it back. On February 12, a larger Serpentine force arrived and finally expelled the veterans from the capitol. This engagement was rather unbloody, as most of the occupying men retreated, as the dwindling supplies and clear hopelessness of their situation had demoralized the majority. Several were arrested, including Kïyal, though he was released two months later as the authorities feared outrage over his imprisonment would simply lead to more uprisings.

Gožyar Independence Army
On February 21, 1915, Kïyal met with a dozen World War veterans and several civilians also sympathetic to the idea of Gožyar independence at the Café Ožär. Over the next several months, the group would continue to meet weekly at the café, and by August 11, there were over 70 in attendance. On September 19, they declared themselves the Gožyar Independence Army.

On December 1, 1915, the Gožyar Independence Army attacked a military outpost near Ükurdzäg and seized a large supply of arms. On January 3, 1916, the GIA carried out an attack on Mardägal, burning down the capitol building that Kïyal had occupied with his fellow veterans almost a year before. These were the first of many supply raids and political attacks by the GIA from 1915 to 1918.