Kentares Massacre

The Kentares Massacre of 2796 was the largest single war crime in human history. Draconis Combine troops wiped out large portions of the population of Kentares IV during the First Succession War as an act of revenge for the death of Coordinator Minoru Kurita.

Lead up

At the time of the First Succession War the Draconis Combine was on the offensive. The DCMS under command of Coordinator Minoru Kurita overcame the AFFS's defenders and pushed deep into the Federated Suns. By 2796 Combine troops were only one jump away from New Avalon, but the supply lines were too stretched and vulnerable for the preparation of the final attack, especially after the Combine supply depot on New Rhodes III was destroyed. Minoru Kurita, landed on Kentares IV to personally oversee the establishment of a new forward base of operations.

The Combine forces began to gain control of the planet during the summer of 2796, forcing the Davion defenders to a single continent. Outside the town of New Snowfield, Minoru was so taken with the scenery that he left his BattleMaster and traveled on foot, accompanied by a small number of troops. It was then that a sharpshooter from the 7th Crucis Lancers shot the Coordinator in the back, killing him. Since Minoru Kurita wore a standard DCMS uniform with Colonel's insignia, the Federated Suns sniper didn't realize whom he had killed.

Massacre

When Minoru's son Jinjiro learned of the assassination, he very calmly ordered his forces to "kill them all". For five months, the Kurita forces systematically murdered everyone they could find on the planet. Jinjiro himself oversaw several of the mass murders and at one point forbade the use of modern weapons, instead requiring his troops to use their katana (swords) to behead the victims.

In February of 2797, when Jinjiro left the planet behind, over 90 percent of the civilian population had been murdered. In total, the Kuritan forces massacred over 52 million people.

The crew of Jinjiro's Daimyo HQ vehicle were so horrified at the massacre that when Jinjiro left the command vehicle to begin viewing the executions in person, they deliberately passed recordings of the events on to a local ComStar representative. That ComStar representative transmitted (against ComStar's directives) information about the massacre. Before long, the entire Inner Sphere knew of Jinjiro's actions on Kentares IV; when the actions of the HQ personnel were discovered, the crew were killed by Jinjiro's bodyguard, the Otomo. As a result of the atrocity, the Eridani Light Horse mercenary unit left the Combine's employ, resulting in a similar situation with their dependents.

Aftermath

The Massacre was the turning point in the First Succession War. Up until that point, the Federated Suns seemed almost on the verge of collapse. The Massacre rallied the population and the AFFS, who soon began pushing back against the invaders. Contributing to this reversal was the demoralization of the DCMS. The few soldiers who could stand it to be responsible for the mass murder of millions of civilians still saw it as a personal loss of honor according to bushido. By 2818 the AFFS pushed the Combine back to its pre-war borders.

The sniper who killed Minoru Kurita committed suicide after he realized that he was partially responsible for the Kentares Massacre.

Bibliography

• Handbook: House Davion
• House Kurita (The Draconis Combine), pp. 55-56.
• House Davion (The Federated Suns), p. 62.
• Technical Readout: 3075

See Also

• Eridani Light Horse