First Battle of Geonosis

This article is about the first battle of the Clone Wars. You may be looking for second battle of Geonosis.

Battle of Geonosis

Conflict

End of Secessionist Movement / Beginning of the Clone Wars^[1]

Place

Geonosis^[1]

Outcome

Galactic Republic victory^[1]
- Beginning of the Clone Wars^[1]

Combatants
Galactic Republic^[1] Jedi Order^[1]	Confederacy of Independent Systems^[1] Trade Federation^[1] Corporate Alliance^[1] Techno Union^[1] Commerce Guild^[1] InterGalactic Banking Clan^[1] Geonosians^[1] Sith^[1]

Commanders
Jedi Master Yoda^[1] Jedi Master Mace Windu^[1] Commander CC-6454^[1] Meebur Gascon	Count Dooku^[1] Archduke Poggle the Lesser^[1]

Strength
202 Jedi^[2] 1 Republic Senator^[1] Padmé Amidala^[1] Grand Army of the Republic^[1] Acclamator-class assault ships^[1] Low Altitude Assault Transports^[1] All Terrain Tactical Enforcers^[1] Clone troopers^[1]	1 Sith Lord^[1] Count Dooku^[1] 1 bounty hunter^[1] Jango Fett †^[1] Separatist Droid Army^[1] IG-227 Hailfire droids Dwarf spider droids

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"This is just the beginning!"

―Count Dooku^[src]

The Battle of Geonosis was the first conflict of the Clone Wars. The battle took place twenty-two years before the Battle of Yavin and was fought on the planet of Geonosis between the Grand Army of the Galactic Republic and the Droid Army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. It was the result of tension between the Republic and the Separatist Alliance, a group of planets that had seceded from the Republic, which had been building towards armed conflict for some time. The events leading up to the battle were manipulated by the two Sith Lords: Count Dooku, the political leader of the Separatists; and Sheev Palpatine, Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and secretly Darth Sidious.

The battle itself began as an attempted execution, after the Separatists arrested Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padawan Anakin Skywalker, and Senator Padmé Amidala under the charge of espionage. A team of two hundred Jedi, led by Jedi Master Mace Windu, arrived to rescue the prisoners, and were soon confronted with numerous battle droids. Many Jedi were killed before Jedi Grand Master Yoda arrived with clone troopers from Kamino, an army that had been secretly created for the Republic. The arrival of the clones sparked the full-scale battle on Geonosis. As the battle raged on, Kenobi and Skywalker engaged and were defeated by Dooku in a lightsaber duel, before being rescued by Yoda. Dooku escaped Geonosis and the Separatists retreated, but the goal of the Sith had been fulfilled: the beginning of the Clone Wars.

The war continued on for three years, and served as a pretext for Palpatine to amass greater executive control over the Galactic Senate. At the end of the war, he branded the Jedi as traitors and executed Order 66, a command to all clones to kill the Jedi. The Jedi Order was destroyed, and Palpatine transformed the Republic into the Galactic Empire, with Palpatine as the ruler of the the galaxy for the next twenty-three years.