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| === Old Britannia === | | === Old Britannia === |
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| [[Britannia]] was never a nation. Rather, it was a confederation of tribes who populated the lands of Britannia, the peninsular continent to the south and west of the Republic. The Britannians were descendents of the slaves of [[Xamichia]], shipped across hundreds of kilometers of unknown land, only to arrive in the already-collapsing Xamichine Empire. As the Empire decentralized, many of the slaves of Britannia began to revolt, forming a slave army known as the Britannian Coalition. The leaders of the coalition vanquished two whole legions of Thrennexians and allied forces at the Battle of Grinvalde in 102 PRY (in modern day [[Groenevelden]]), and thus expelled the Old Sammichian Empire from the Britannian continent.
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| The triumph of the Britannians over the Empire was short-lived however, as the power vaccuum led to long periods of war between the Britannian leaders, who factionalized based on old cultural connections. The Britannians splintered into separate provinces, each relegated to their section of the continent. The Westers, residing in the Western tip of Britannia, never settled, and decided to sail out of the Shire to the West in approx. 98 CE, where they settled in a city known only as "Westen Aarde". The Nooters and Zeeders settled in the North, in the forests and fields near modern-day Groenevelden and South Paarsdam. The Suuths occupied the most territory, taking the entire southern peninsula as well as the land left behind by the Westers when they took to the sea. The Eestis occupied the areas around the Phobon mountains, from the fields of [[Phobon]] and the forests of [[Amica]], to the swamps near [[Pearl Beach]]. In the center of the continent was the Riverland, a highly-contested and bitterly disputed fertile territory, which would prove to be the most desired location of them all.
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| ==== The First Federation ====
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| According to archaelogical finds and cultural research, the seeds of the First Federation sprouted around 560 CE. The First Federation was formed between the Nooters and the Zeeders as an alliance to curb the strength of the Suuth, which had annexed the Riverland. The Eestis were meanwhile dealing with internal strife from an influx of Enpeecee peoples escaping the persecution of Fulfwotzian armies in the Demmatrodine. A bloody war followed the alliance, with the Zeeders and Nooters coming out on top, thanks to a seaborne invasion by the Zeeders to the West. A puppet of the Federation was established in the Riverland, remembered as the False Rivermensen, which became a part of the Federation immediately. The Suuth were forced to remain in the West and South of the continent.
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| The next 600 years were marked by alternating periods of war and peace. Negligible contact and trading was made with the New Sammichians in the South, nor the Shai and Venezian civilizations to the East, but the Nooters and Zeeders began trading extensively with Caffa to the North and Knavobuki to the East. The Suuth traded over sea and land with far-flung [[Solurian|Solurian Empire]] merchants to the south, as well as the indigenous peoples of modern-day [[Avignon]] and [[Tomoya]]. The Eestis could not sustain their sovereignty after the Enpeecee crisis, and were annexed swiftly by the Suuth. In 1234 the Suuth declared an all-out invasion of the Federation, and a bloody and devastating war ensued between the tribes, lasting over 70 years, with sporadic truces every five to twenty years. The arrival of the [[Delphic Coven]] only complicated matters, as they refused to trade with nor assist the Nooters nor the Zeeders, as they considered them to be less powerful than the Suuth. After decades of war, the Suuth came out on top, thanks to the manpower of the Eestis and [[Sol]]-built ships.
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| The Suuth conquered the Riverland and set up their own government, this time as rulers of the entire continent. They forced the First Federation to dismantle and subjugated the Nooters and Zeeders, thus forming the Second Federation. The birth of the Republic's rivalry with Caffa begins here, as the monumentally wealthy Caffans refused to provide any military aid to the Nooters or Zeeders, despite constant awareness of the dire situation, and a favorable outcome guaranteed should they have joined the war or sent mercenaries. The Caffans were hated universally for their supposed betrayal, despite no alliance ever having been made.
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| ==== The Second Federation ====
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| The Second Federation (or Suuth Federation), under the control of the Britannian Suuths, was a federation only in name and more resembled a sort of Feudal Despotism presiding over the rest of Britannia. The history of the Second Federation was well documented by the Britannians who escaped Sammichian decimation in the late 1600s CE. Founded soon after the 70 Year War in 1311, the Suuth ruled the Federation from their capital, Suerdem, on the Southern Peninsula. The Suuth immediately cut off all trade with Caffa, which proved a popular move among the conquered peoples. The Suuth expanded the Southern trade system to include the cities of Keikei Bay and for the first time, made contact with the New Sammichians for the first time in Paris in 1427. Seen as a backwater tribe of the North, the Suuth were largely ignored by the Sammichians, who were by far the proudest nation of the Demmatrodine region at that time. They continued to trade with the Solurians, however, which led to advances in shipbuilding and urban planning technology for the Britannians.
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| In 1498, several Eesti and Suuth merchants were out late in the streets of Knavobuki, having drunk too much at a local tavern. Two Caffan guild members were also out that night, waiting for a shipment of melons to arrive by horse from Clementine. Insults were exchanged and an argument ensued, and once the shipment arrived, a cart of melons was ransacked by the Britannians. Word reached Caffa within three days, and an embargo was issued against the Second Federation. The hotheaded Suuth bypassed the other Britannians and immediately declared war, beginning the Melon Cart War of 1498.
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| The Melon Cart War lasted seven days. The Nooters and Zeeders, aware that Caffa's navy could outfight even the massive, technologically advanced fleet of the Britannian Federation, withdrew their ships from the armada in the dead of night before battle. In the Battle of the Sargoth Sea, off of the island city state of Sargoth, the Caffan navy decisively defeated the combined Suuth and Eesti naval forces, obliterating over 75% of the entire Britannian armada. To this day, the site of the battle is a treasure trove for divers and explorers, as much of the wealth of the Suuth people went down with those ships. The rest of the navy was either scuttled in the islands of the Western Sea or escaped home to Suerdem, where they were met with the utmost chagrin. The Britannians accepted a white peace with Caffa, who figured they didn't need to enforce any demands on the Federation, as they were already crippled by the war.
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| The Second Federation descended into chaos immediately afterwards. Angry mobs stormed the castle of the Suuth King, Amadei, and forced him to retreat to the Riverland, where he assembled an army and crushed the revolt. Sensing weakness, Zeeder merchants began paying mercenaries and privateers to raid villages in the Riverland and West, causing death and devastation throughout those areas. After some tribal revolts in the east were quelled, King Amadei invaded and occupied Zeeder with his army, planting it directly in their capital city of [[Purpur|South Paarsdam]]. The merchants did not take kindly to this, and began paying Nooter men to seize government facilities in their capital of Grinvalde. With the army in shambles and the royal coffers empty, Amadei committed suicide by lightening rod after contracting rabies from his hunting dog, Zipr, in 1530 CE, thus ending the Second Federation.
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| ==== Third Federation ====
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| The Third Federation (or Final Federation) was the union of the Nooter, Zeeder, and Eesti in the wake of the collapse of the Suuth Federation in 1531 CE. As the Suuth nation tore itself apart with insurrection and corruption, the Northern states began consolidating their territories after years of foreign control. Grinvalde grew to incorporate the entire peninsula it was on, and Purpur experienced a shipbuilding boom, and the rise of gunpowder manufacturing in the city. The Eesti finally managed to settle their differences with the Enpeecees, helping to form the settlement that is now [[Amica]]. A wave of peace swept over the northeastern half of the continent for the first time in almost 300 years. Crops regrew, the Rivermensen gained their sovereignty and joined the Federation, trade in the Western sea flourished (despite ongoing rivalry with Caffa), and entire generations were born and died free.
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| The grave mistake of the Third Federation, however, was allowing the Suuth to remain sovereign at this time. Throughout the southwest, splinter factions, zealots, pretenders, and particularists all competed for power with the monarchy, which resorted to paying off whoever was the weakest in order to kill those who were stronger. This led to a rise in reactionary paramilitaries, including the notorious Hunter Corps (Dutch: ''Jagercorps''). The Corps led expeditions into the countryside, terrorizing farmers and townspeople who were too weak from famine to fight back. They raped, pillaged, and looted their way into [[Little Wangletonian|Little Wangleton]] territory. The witches of the [[Delphic Coven]] cast a spell to keep the scourge from attacking the town, but this only made the Jagercorps more determined. They infiltrated the village by night and committed hate crimes and assaults against witches young and old. They snuck in during crowded market days, blending in amongst the Zeeder and Eesti merchants and consumers, and defiled houses and stands of those who harbored the witches. The Delphic Coven began casting spells to differentiate these witch hunters from the rest of the crowd, to be arrested on the spot.
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| When a rogue witch who had had enough harassment struck back by sinking a ship filled with Jagercorps mercenaries bound for Taynia in 1653, the rest of the army hatched a plan, then disbanded. Over the next few years, the Jagercorps infiltrated the Delphic Coven, lulling them into a sense of security. In 1670, the first Witch Trial was held across the river from Little Wangleton in a village near the Riverland. Over the next five years, over 130 witches would be sentenced to death by the Jagercorps, including former Corps members themselves. The Third Federation attempted to squash the out-of-control behavior, but the Jagers would disappear into the forests and hills, and Trials had now extended from the Jagercorps to the Little Wangletonians themselves, who blamed the witches for the chaos. The Third Federation looked to the Suuth monarch to stop the violence, but the response was uncaring and even supportive from the halls of Denguus III. International outrage was widespread, from Caffa to Sol, from Fulfwotz to Clementine.
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| In 1674 CE, the Kingdom of Fulfwotz, having newly acquired the colony of [[Activia]], caught wind of the Trials and immediately blamed the Third Federation, unaware of the fact that Suuth still existed as a sovereign state condoning the Trials. The Sammichians annexed Little Wangleton in 1675, and stationed a 4,000-man garrison of colonial soldiers in the town. The Sammichian contingent was better equipped and better trained than most of the Third Federation's army and all of the Suuth forces, and this greatly impressed the Jagercorps. Their bloodlust led them down from the mountains to the Federation side of the Wangleton River, where on a crowded market day, 750 Jagercorps soldiers wearing Federation and Suuth uniforms fired two musket volleys onto soldiers and civilians in the town, killing 18 and wounding 3. The garrison responded by organizing and firing back, killing 7 and wounding 12 Corps members. The Jagercorps retreated, but left behind the wounded, who all claimed to be Britannian regulars from both armies. The Sammichians took this to be fact and declared war on all of Britannia on October 12th, 1676.
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| === The Destruction of Old Britannia ===
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| The war began with the Little Wangleton Garrison taking positions across the river in the forests of the Zeeder. The Zeeder retaliated with their naval superiority by bombarding these forces, refusing to allow them to fortify. The wargoal of the Federation was to contain the Sammichian forces, but not to harm their civilians. A Nooter army of 12,000 pikes, musketeers, cavalry, and cannons then occupied fortifications in the hills above Little Wangleton. Their superior position drove the enemy back across the river to wait for reinforcements. On October 26th, 9,500 Sammichian colonial veterans marched over the mountains into Phobon valley to relieve Little Wangleton, but they came into contact with over 25,000 Eesti soldiers, equipped with antiquated swords, chainmail, crossbows, and bombards. In the Battle of Phobon on October 27th, 1676, over 19,000 casualties were inflicted on the Eesti, while the Sammichians suffered less than 1,500. 7,200 strong, leaving behind 1,000 to occupy Amica, they reinforced Little Wangleton unopposed.
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| Hearing of the staggering losses from the Eesti, the Federation army and navy gave up on its wargoal and adopted a new strategy of all-out total war. In Purpur and Grinvalde, manufactories and workshops churned out weapons by the dozens every day, and training was non-stop in regimental camps. The navy cranked ship-building to a maximum, including making several expensive galley purchases from their rival, Caffa. Massive fortifications and earthworks, including the Groenevelden starfort, were erected in choke points throughout Federation territories. The Federation war machine was capable of cranking out two galleons a month and 1,000 trained soldiers every week. The only problem was that Suuth and Eesti could not keep up, and Riverland had no manufacturing capabilities besides a single workshop where blacksmiths, gunsmiths, fletchers, and bowyers had to take shifts working around the clock.
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| On November 20th, 7,000 Sammichian soldiers left Little Wangleton and moved Southeast through the Phobon valley to finish off the Eesti. The Federation told the Suuth to immediately cut them off with their entire army, more than 35,000 strong. The Suuth, however, declined and instead sent 3,000 soldiers of the newly reformed Jagercorps to harass the supply lines of the Sammichians. Instead of mounting an effective campaign, though, the Delphic Coven cast a spell which led to the Jagercorps all receiving dysentary from the same river, thus rendering 3,000 troops out of action for at least two weeks.
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| The Siege of Eastport began on November 24th, and could not be lifted by any best effort, due to snows that rendered large-scale movement useless. The siege forces were reinforced by land with 3,000 fresh troops on December 9th, and Eastport fell in a bloody assault on the 20th. The city was ransacked through and through, then razed to the ground. Colonial forces took it on themselves to massacre or enslave every man woman and child in the city upon capture, but many escaped and hid in the forests outside the city, marking the beginning of the Britannian exodus.
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| The capturing force of 10,000 men would remain in the city until the snowmelt in March, and the Federation knew this, so an operation to capture Little Wangleton was incubated in December. In the early morning of January First, 1677 CE, over 13,000 Zeeder soldiers and artillery were landed on the peninsula east of Little Wangleton, and the 12,000 Nooter troops stationed in the hills moved down to the riverside.
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| ==== Casualties of the Genocide ====
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| Such massive numbers have been reported in both oral and written histories that many have had reason to doubt their legitimacy, but with the advanced nature of the Sammichian training and tactics, as well as better equipment, counteracted by the murderous, rampaging criminals that made up the reserve elements of the Sammichian colonial forces, the losses of the Britannians were absolutely staggering. The Suuth as a people were barely saved by the mass evacuations of civilians in May 1677, but their nation was ravaged. Out of an estimated 450,000 pre-war citizens, only 20,000 Suuth made it to Paarsdam by 1680, and an estimated 150,000 were either enslaved or forced to populate Sammichian cities across the Shire, about 100,000 ended up as refugees across the Western Shire, many running to Sol and Avignon, some making it as far as [[Gunderhelm]] and [[Spirulida]]. The other 180,000 Suuth peoples were left dead in their fields and cities. Most of which being men, young and old, because of the Colonial army's brutal, often genocidal strategies of suppression. Most of the Eesti and Rivermensen managed to blend with the Enpeecees in Amica, which was later sold to [[Nuova Venezia]], or escaped to Paarsdam with the resettlers. Their civilizations were also wiped from history, never to be seen again, along with over 80,000 of their people, dead or deported. In comparison, the Sammichians lost 4,500 people in the entire campaign, with 76 civilians dead from the shelling of Little Wangleton.
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| The fields were then salted or planted over, and the cities taken down brick by brick, looted for every valuable material that the treasure ships and soldiers could hold. The entire civilization of Britannia and the Suuth, the Eesti, and the Rivermensen were erased from the continent forever. No ruins, no markers, no people. Just fields and forests. The last remnant of the Britannian civilization lies in the West. The massive unfinished wall of the former Wester capital, left by the colonial forces because of motivational issues amongst the soldiers.
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| To this day, the New Sammichian Empire remains unforgiven by the Republic of Orange and Purple for their actions in Britannia, despite multiple attempts to apologize. The key misunderstanding between the two nations was that the Colonial forces acted outside of military central command, completely on their own generals' orders, however there is a lack of understanding that the mindset of the colonizers that built the size and might of the New Sammichian Empire today, also contributed to the destruction of Britannia.
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