The Cabria War has been mentioned exactly twice during the Fairy Tail series, once in reference to Trinity Raven and once about Bluenote Stinger.
In it’s first mention, Simon says that Trinity Raven fought in the Cabria War and they assassinated “all the officers of the Western Army.”
In the map we have of Ishgar,
Fiore is towards the west, and we know that Alvarez is on the western continent. Either Alvarez was the “Western Army” in this mention, or Fiore is. Alvarez hasn’t been involved in Ishgar’s affairs much at all, so it’s most likely the second. I would assume they would have said Fioran Army if it was simply them, so this was an alliance. This was some kind of world war.
Additionally, we know that the Tower of Heaven is nearer to Caelum than to Fiore, because the Magic Council was more concerned about offending them than Fiore. The Magic Council governs the entire magical world, not just the kingdom’s, so it can be assumed there might be a lot of tension between country governments and the Council, especially where crime is concerned.
Simon also calls Death’s Head Caucus a Dark Guild, meaning it is a magic guild, meaning that it would fall under the Council’s jurisdiction. This was a war the magical world was involved in.
More importantly, Simon calls their power “legendary.” The Cabria War happened recently enough that people still fear it’s participants, but far enough in the past that they can be called legends. Based on how fast word seems to spread about wizards in this world however, I wouldn’t put too much weight in that assessment.
It’s hard to place the ages of these three dark wizards, because it’s difficult to place the ages of any anime characters, but I wouldn’t put any of them over forty. This war most likely happened in the last twenty years.
In the second reference to the Cabria War, it’s by employees of the Magic Council.
Again, we know that this war was significant to the magical world, and had magic users participating as a norm. Given how widespread and important magic is, this isn’t very surprising.
However, the Magic Council governs the entire magical world, and guilds aren’t allowed to fight each other. Either this was a violation of this rule and it was similar to the Second Trade War that Mavis participated in, or it follows my earlier assumption about countries, and the Magic Council offered assistance to the side it allied with.
That side would most likely be the Western Army, given how important the council seems to be in the West, without any responsibilities shown outside of that.
Fiore doesn’t really seem to be a country that’s recently been through war, which means that either it happened a while ago, which is unlikely, or it took place far away and Fiore was just a participant—or, they weren’t involved at all and both Bluenote and Trinity Raven came from far away to do their respective evil deeds.
However, both Mest and Lahar seem personally affected by Bluenote’s reputation, so I would assume Fiore was involved somehow. The only war we have seen is between Alvarez and Fiore, and that was hardly a typical one, given that there were few overall participants and it lasted like a week.
My current theory is this: the Cabria War happened sometime during the X760s, in the Northeast of the map we see there. The northern continent, including Isvan, where Gray is from, was on the opposing side to the Western Army. That is why, when they were under attack from Deliora, there were no attempts from foreign forces to assist them.
It was something that happened during the Cabria War that set Deliora free in the Northern Continent.
Guild mages were hired to participate in this war, and it’s seen as a fairly typical practice.
Anyway I don’t know what the point of compiling all this was, I’m just pissed this isn’t something that’s been mentioned beyond two random anecdotes about individual participants. You’d think an actual, full-out war with officers and regiments would be important to this world Mashima’s created, but I guess not.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
