Best intentions, maybe, but very poorly executed. At the time that Asylon decided to attack Kabrinskia, the north was near-defenseless (hence, Astrum was able to take Wallershire with ease, and immediately pose a threat to the Itau duchy). This was despite the fact that even before the war, alarms were raised by some regarding the weakness of the northern border.
Kabrinskia also managed to plunder the regions between Itau and Via, virtually splitting Asylon in two. When concerns were raised over this, Glaumring remarked that Kybcyell and Uppervia were "useless anyway", despite the fact that the two regions were the ones feeding Via and Itau. I expect that contributed to the extreme starvation in Asylon (and that certainly helped alleviate starvation in Kabrinskia, in addition to allied supply
).
