In 1792, Ukgan Krzka (a senior general in the Greater Cestlep Revolutionary State's army) crowned himself Emperor of the Masses, proclaiming the universality of the Imperial Constitution, declaring the popular sovereignty of all Oceanykans as the only legitimate source of power. This new order was renamed the Third Empire, and it claimed sovereignty over all of Oceanyka, promising freedom from foreign colonialism and civil liberties then unknown in the continent. A joint response was slow to develop, while the Imperial Army marched across the Murray-Darling basin almost unopposed. Their eager adoption of Napoleonic military thought, spurred by ample correspondence between Emperor Krzka and Napoleon Bonaparte, allowed them to have constant numerical, tactical and strategical superiority over its enemies.
However, King George III of Great Britain had other plans. The Crown's ambition to colonise Australia had been formulated over decades, its first foothold being Sydney and the surrounding British settlements. Emperor Krzka's Third Empire had established, as its primary mission, the protection of Oceanyka from foreign colonial ventures, and the British were the first on the firing line. English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish settlers, skilled workers and advisors were massacred all along the areas occupied by the Imperial Army. In response, George III ordered Captain Arthur Phillip, then Governor of New South Wales, to assemble an Australian Coalition between anti-Imperial forces and states. This political endeavour was ultimately successful, and numerical superiority was achieved.
The reason these conflicts were named the Revolutionary Wars is that they make up five different wars, during which allegiances constantly shifted towards one side or another. Only in the Fifth Revolutionary War did the Third Empire, now encompassing almost a third of Australia's surface, find itself completely alone against every other state in Oceanyka, plus Great Britain and her allies.
Battles in the Revolutionary Wars often involved dozens of divisions on each side, and rarely millions of soldiers. The largest of these was undoubtedly the Battle of the Nullarbor Plains, lasting five years with about 7 million casualties in total. Conscription, initially limited to men of fighting age, eventually encompassed women, children and even the old as ideological zeal and stubbornness cemented themselves in the collective consciousness of both sides. Famine and disease were a constant threat, especially the former since both sides began using chevauchée, or mounted scorched earth tactics, infiltrating groups of light cavalrymen through the Outback to raze the enemy's agricultural heartland.
The summer of 1814 signals the beginning of the end, as drought and blight ravaged Australia's already fickle agricultural base. Societal collapse began setting in, but even then, neither the Coalition nor the Empire chose to surrender. Over the next four years a series of natural disasters would cause further mass death, while the weakened and depopulated realms of Oceanyka chose to become protectorates of the British Empire. An increasing number of British soldiers began to arrive, patrolling what was mostly ruined cities and burnt down fields.
This 25 year period of conflict went down as one of the bloodiest in human history. Over sixty million lives were lost, by then a good half of the population. The last four years of the conflict are characterised by a total breakdown of society as famine, disease, secessionism, banditry and decay of government combined. This is named the Continental Collapse by Oceanykan historians.