René Gramont

Réne Gramont
2nd President of Laeral
In office 1962–1966
Prime Minister	Sun Jia-wei
Preceded by	François Guirard
2nd Prime Minister of Laeral
In office 1958–1962
President	François Guirard
1st Foreign Minister of Laeral
In office 1954–1958
President	François Guirard
Prime Minister	Sun Jia-wei
1st President of the Republic of Laeral
In office 1922–1932
Prime Minister	Jean-Philippe Salaun
Vice President	Edmond Yeoh
Personal details
Born	August 18, 1884 Maissis, Harcour, Laeral
Died	January 19, 1966 Meilinis, Laeral
Cause of death	Heart attack
Resting place	Gramont Mausoleum, Maissis, Harcour, Laeral
Citizenship	Laeralian
Political party	Social Democratic
Other political affiliations	Committee for Democracy and Progress Labor Party
Spouse(s)	Thérèse Gramont (1905-1928)
Domestic partner	Elnara Harim, Gabrielle Travers, Sabine Bellerose
Children	Alexine Gramont, Liliane Gramont, Stephan Gramont, Annette Gramont, Pei-shan Gramont
Mother	Marie-Ange Gramont
Father	Emile Gramont
Military service
Allegiance	First Allied Provinces of Laeral (1904-1916) Committee for Democracy and Progress (1919-1922)
Service/branch	Army
Years of service	1904-1916; 1919-1922
Rank	Major (First Allied Provinces of Laeral) Field Marshal (Committee for Democracy and Progress)
Commands	Second Harcour Infantry Regiment (First Allied Provinces of Laeral) Army of the Committee for Democracy and Progress
Awards	Order of National Merit, Medal of Valor (Second Class) (First Allied Provinces of Laeral) Order of Han Guiying (First Class), Laeralian Medal of the Civil War (Gold) (Republic of Laeral)

Réne Corentin Gramont was a Laeralian soldier, revolutionary statesman, and politician who led the Committee for Democracy and Progress in the Laeralian Civil War and served as the first President of the Republic of Laeral and later as the second President of the Second Allied Provinces of Laeral. As the leader of the Gang of Five during the Republic of Laeral period, he enacted wide-ranging reforms to the Laeralian state and Laeralian society known as the Rose Revolution, under the core principles of republicanism, reformism, socialism, secularism, and anti-imperialism, which were sometimes known as Gramontism. Gramont later became a major political force in the early years of the Second Allied Provinces of Laeral, serving as President from 1962 until his death in office in 1966. He is widely considered among the greatest figures in Laeralian history and an architect of modern Laeral; he often appears on lists of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.

Gramont initially came to prominence as a soldier in the army of the First Allied Provinces of Laeral, rising to the rank of Major in the First Fellsian War and becoming a decorated hero following victories at the battles of Poimur, Corentin, and Valengny. After his resignation from the Laeralian Army, he joined an underground group pushing for societal and governmental reform, known as the Committee for Democracy and Progress (CDP). When the Laeralian Civil War broke out in 1919, Gramont assumed command of the forces of the CDP, ultimately using his tactical acumen to defeat government forces and replace the First Allied Provinces with the Republic of Laeral.

He was elected as the Republic's first President in 1922, and subsequently reelected in 1927 for a second five-year term. His government enacted socialist and modernization programs with the ultimate goal of reforming Laeral into a modern, progressive, and tolerant nation. He created free nationwide public education, abolishing religious schooling and instituting a new nationwide curriculum. He reversed laws which promoted racial discrimination, and adopted redistributive policies meant to promote Rén empowerment. Under his rule, Laeralian women were emancipated under liberalized laws, and received social and civil rights similar to those of men. He also defeated Libertas Omnium Maximus in the Brissac War (1925-1928), bringing modern-day Brissac and Lematre provinces under Laeralian rule.

As the leader of Laeral's Social Democratic Party, he remained an influential figure in the development of the Laeralian state as his close allies Jean-Philippe Salaun, Zhou Wei-lin, and Sun Jia-wei went on to lead the Republic. During the Bloody Summer, he led government forces against Alain Mette's Laeralian Front, and played a major role in the drafting of the Laeralian Constitution, which created the Second Allied Provinces of Laeral. Hoping to check President François Guirard's policies, Gramont was named as the Foreign Minister of the new nation, becoming Prime Minister in 1958 and being elected President in 1962. As President of the Second Allied Provinces, he came under criticism for taking authoritarian actions during the Emergency Period. He died of a heart attack in 1966, and received a state funeral before being buried in the immense Gramont Mausoleum near his birthplace in Harcour.

Early Life

Réne Corentin Gramont was born in the rural town of Maissis, in Harcour province, Laeral, to Emile Gramont, a local merchant and trader, and Marie-Ange Gramont. It is believed that one of his grandparents on his mother's side, as well as at least one of his great-grandparents on his father's side, were Rén; Gramont himself identified as Arrivée throughout his life. A middle name does not appear on his birth certificate; he adopted the name Corentin following his near-death experience at that battle during the First Fellsian War. His younger brother died at a young age, and as a result Gramont grew up as an only child; Emile and Marie-Ange Gramont found it difficult to conceive children. Gramont attended a local parochial school for his early education, and a secular private school for further education. In 1900, Gramont applied and was accepted to the Laeralian Military Academy in Althea, Loiraine.

Gramont had initially hoped to join the cavalry, then seen as the surest path to social advancement, but was denied by his instructors, instead becoming an infantry officer. Gramont had become involved in politics in Althea; he was notably sympathetic to the city's labor unions, and joined a club of young officer cadets dedicated to discussing reforms to the existing political system. He also opposed the Laeralian expeditionary force sent to Shen to quell the Golden Flag Rebellion, sympathizing with the plight of the Shen rebels. He graduated from the academy near the top of his class, but was not offered a position with a serving regiment, possibly because of his political views or his unrefined, rural manners. During his time at the Laeralian Military Academy, he met Thérèse Perray, the eldest daughter of a wealthy merchant supplying the Laeralian army. The two became infatuated with one another, and ultimately married in 1905.

Military Career

Early Years

The outbuilding of the Althea Armory where Gramont worked from 1904-1906.

Upon graduating, Gramont was not offered a position with a serving regiment, but instead placed on half-pay and given a secretarial position at the Althea Armory. He was reportedly a mediocre secretary, and his half-pay salary meant that he lived in a small apartment. One of his neighbors was Zhou Wei-lin, then unsuccessfully seeking a mercantile career. The two men became friends; Zhou would eventually become Gramont's aide-de-camp during the First Fellsian War. Around this time, Gramont also met the union leader Julien Cheng, who would eventually become Economy Minister under Gramont's presidency.

In 1905, Gramont married Thérèse Perray, and the two honeymooned in northern Meilinis; Gramont would later be involved in fierce battles of the First Fellsian War near the very same countryside landscapes he and his newlywed wife had admired. Thanks to the influence of his father-in-law Jacques Perray, Gramont was taken off of half-pay in 1906. Instead of being assigned to a military unit, however, Second Lieutenant Gramont was assigned to a military delegation sent to Serriel, where Sultan Mansur Hazinedar was relying on Laeralian assistance to defeat a tribal uprising of the nomadic Suhar people.

Gramont left his pregnant wife in Althea in March 1906, accompanying around two dozen Laeralian Army officers on a trip by sea to Serriel. Gramont proved a quick study at languages, quickly mastering the Serrin language and thus becoming a trusted aide to the leader of the delegation, Colonel Sabin de Montreuil. Gramont accompanied the Sultan's forces on expeditions into the interior to fight the Suhar rebels, observing firsthand the value of good logistics, the dangers posed by the stealth and camouflage of the Suhar, and the deadly potential of the Narbonne machine guns provided by the Laeralian delegation. Gramont escaped his first battles unharmed, noting in a letter to a friend that "adventure, once sampled, is a hard dish to resist."

A Laeralian military adviser (left) accompanies Sultan Mansur's forces, 1907.

Gramont spent nearly two years in Serriel, at one point contracting a serious case of tuberculosis. He was treated by a Serrielan nurse, Elnara Hanim, with whom he developed romantic feelings for; it is believed that they may have consummated an affair. In March 1908, the Laeralian delegation was sent to the city of Xianjiapo, a Shen city which was administered by Laeral following the Golden Flag Rebellion. The international occupation of the region was violent and destructive; promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and assigned to the headquarters of the Laeralian Expeditionary Force, he saw firsthand the impact of the Laeralian occupation. In a letter to his wife Thérèse, he wrote that: "the cruelties perpetrated upon the people of the Shen land we have come to occupy is difficult to convey with words. The men view us with defiance like a cold flame in their eyes, while the women flinch away and keep close their children. The rhetoric and justification of the men in our halls of government in distant Laeral is flimsy when viewed alongside the barbaric nature of the international occupation in Xianjiapo and the surrounding lands."

In late 1909, Gramont was granted permission to return to Laeral by ship. Upon returning to Althea, he rejoined his wife and saw his infant daughter, Alexine Gramont, for the first time. He was granted a post at the headquarters of the Second Army, comprising the Loiraine provincial forces which had been absorbed into the national army by the 1888 Gagneux Reforms. A May 1910 evaluation by Captain Adolphe Reyer of the Second Army described Gramont as "a committed soldier, most intelligent and quick of wit, yet finds it difficult to grasp his position with regards to his brother officers." It appeared as if Lieutenant Gramont may have been held in an advisory position forever, yet he was soon to be given opportunities for advancement by the outbreak of hostilities in 1911.

First Fellsian War

Gramont in uniform prior to being deployed to the front lines.

On the March 18th Incident in 1911, a High Fellsian railroad bridge in the volatile High Fellsian border region of Valenne was blown up by saboteurs. One of those saboteurs was shot and killed by Fellsian soldiers; the attack was used as an excuse by the High Fellsian Parliament to declare war on Laeral. The Laeralian standing army was quickly called up to the northern frontier; soldiers in Gramont's regiment were given only one day to prepare for immediate deployment to the front. As a native Harcouran, Lieutenant Gramont was assigned to the Second Harcour Infantry Regiment, part of the Second Army. As the regiment deployed and was sent northwards, High Fellsian troops advanced southwards through Cenefort and Minzu provinces, forcing Laeralian troops back before them.

Gramont's unit arrived at the front lines in time to join Field Marshal Duval's counteroffensive, which forced back overextended Fellsian forces. Upon reaching the front in early May 1911, the Second Harcour Infantry found themselves in fluid fighting in northern Meilinis, where Fellsian cavalry were spearheading the drive southwards. In fighting around Dumont's Farm, the farm horse Gramont had commandeered was shot to death underneath him, but Gramont was unharmed, making him a celebrated figure among the regiment.

In July 1911, as the Fellsian advance stalled in their drive southwards, the front lines settled into the trench warfare which would become synonymous with the war itself. Artillery and machine guns meant that advance was difficult, while soldiers frequently came under attack. Gramont's regiment was located on the front lines in northwestern Meilinis, only around fifteen kilometers north of the village where Gramont and his wife had honeymooned. "All around us is desolation," wrote Gramont in a letter to Thérèse. "Even amid the mud and grime of the trenches I am sheltering in, I recall the beauty of the land we visited after our marriage." With the Fellsian trenches only around 50 meters away, the Laeralian soldiers were constantly on guard for enemy soldiers, while the trench came under frequent shelling. Bolstered by reinforcements from the Third Army (comprising forces of the southeastern provinces), the Laeralian commander Field Marshal Duval called for an attack in March 1912, near the town of Poimur, where the Fellsians had occupied the fortress of Fort de Poimur.

The war-torn countryside in northwestern Meilinis.

Poimur Campaign

The attack on Poimur was preceded by a buildup of around 135,000 Laeralian troops and an artillery barrage of three days in length. At 9:00 on the morning of March 19th, roughly 30,000 Laeralian soldiers charged towards Fellsian positions. Gramont's Second Harcour Infantry was among the regiments advancing towards the town of Poimur; although the regiment sustained some casualties to enemy fire, Gramont's platoon took only a single casualty according to battlefield records.

Laeralian forces attacking the fort, however, faced heavy casualties from enemy machine gun fire, failing to breach the fort on the day of the attack. The forces in the valley below halted their advance to wait for the fort's capitulation, which would take six days of siege and artillery fire. Gramont's Second Harcour Infantry repulsed a Fellsian counterattack on March 23rd, and soon settled in for months of further attritional warfare. The regiment had gained around 4 kilometers of territory.

From April 1912 to July 1913, Gramont remained in the Poimur salient with his unit. The focus of combat by this time had turned to the Minzu region, where brutal mountain fighting was taking a toll on both sides. Gramont described this as a time of comparative tranquility during his wartime service- he read tracts on politics and philosophy, as well as taking the opportunity to learn Mandarin from an orderly in his regiment.

Siege of Corentin

In July 1913, Fellsian forces began an assault on the Laeralian-held fortress of Corentin outside the city of Rilos, believed to be impregnable at the time of its design in 1890. However, advanced Fellsian artillery and mortars proved effective against the fortress's walls, leading to a protracted Fellsian assault on the fortress. Hoping to prevent the loss of Rilos, the largest city in the north of Laeral, reinforcements including Gramont's regiment were rushed to defend Corentin. "The enemy shall not breach Corentin's gates!" declared Laeralian Prime Minister Auguste Brienne.

The defenders of Corentin.

At the fortress of Corentin, Gramont entered among the bloodiest and most vicious fighting of his military career. Fellsian commanders, while initially intending to seize Rilos, eventually chose to use the siege of Corentin as a means of destroying the Laeralian Army's troop strength by inflicting maximum casualties on the defenders. The continuing Fellsian artillery bombardment was estimated as consuming around 6,000 artillery shells daily, while Laeralian artillery batteries fired around 2,000 artillery shells a day at Fellsian lines. With tens of thousands of troops committed at Corentin, the Laeralites suffered staggering losses.

In late September 1912, the company's senior-most lieutenant and captain were killed by an artillery shell which hit a command post, leaving Gramont as a captain, commanding a force that on paper numbered around 140 men but in practice had only around 90 soldiers able to fight. Captain Gramont quickly established himself as a fearless fighter, at one point using his rifle's bayonet to help fend off a Fellsian charge. The bloody siege continued, with the Second Harcour Infantry at the front lines. Even the Fellsian use of poison gas against the fortress in November 1912 failed to dislodge the Laeralian defenders, although casualties were immense. Fighting slowed as winter came; Gramont was granted two weeks' leave to visit his wife at Christmas, which he did.

In April 1913, after around nine months of continuous siege, Gramont was involved in the first of several Laeralian counterattacks against the Fellsian forces besieging Corentin. Although this counterattack was a costly failure, a subsequent attack in June 1913, which was prefaced by a "creeping barrage" of artillery shells preceding the advancing Laeralian troops, succeeded at overrunning the front line of Fellsian positions. Gramont's company was the first Laeralian force to breach the Fellsian line, at Artillery Battery B, where Gramont's company captured a Fellsian soldier who led the attacking force into the battery, taking around 60 Fellsians prisoner. In the assault the next morning, Gramont was struck by a bullet in his chest, and was rushed behind the lines to a field hospital.

Gramont had sustained tremendous blood loss due to delays in bringing him to medical care, and spent three weeks in a field hospital. His wound became infected, possibly with gangrene, and it was believed that he might die. He was sent to the new home in Garnier, Harcour, which he and Thérèse shared, and ultimately pulled through the infection. During his recovery, he chose to take on the middle name Corentin, in recognition of his brush with death and of the fellow soldiers lost at that battle.

General Jean-Philippe Salaun, who would become Gramont's mentor and political ally.

He was awarded the Medal of Valor, Second Class, for his actions during the siege of Corentin. Hoping to boost public support for the increasingly bloody conflict, the Laeralian government sent Gramont alongside other veterans of the front line on a nationwide tour to promote enlistment in the Laeralian Army. As one of the "Heroes of Corentin," Gramont received media attention bringing him into the nationwide spotlight, including a profile featured on the cover of the major weekly periodical "Le Laeralien".

Transfer to Salaun's Staff

In March 1914, Gramont was invited to meet with Lieutenant General Jean-Philippe Salaun, who commanded the 17th Army Corps. A younger officer respected for his strategic skill, Salaun recognized the military potential of the younger man, inviting Gramont to join his General Staff. Gramont was officially transferred to Salaun's staff on March 25th, 1914, with the rank of Major.

Salaun commanded the 17th Army Corps, comprising around 40,000 soldiers (the Laeralian Army at this point consisted of around 2,100,000 men). In Spring 1914, the 17th Corps was withdrawn from the mountainous fighting in northern Minzu and brought to Hanshui for regrouping and training. In conjunction with Salaun and other members of the Corps's staff, the Corps leadership developed a new method of "rapid, scientific" warfare meant to crack the stalemate on the front lines. This would involve rapid artillery barrages or other shock attacks meant to startle opposing forces, followed by rapid attacks spearheaded by elite troops and a rapid follow-up, with mobile troops prepared to penetrate any gap in the enemy line.

Officer trainees of Salaun's 17th Corps.

Gramont himself suggested a focus on empowering junior officers to take initiative, finding promising young officers and training them personally in the new style of warfare. Among these officers was Zhou Wei-lin, a lieutenant whom Gramont was impressed by and named his aide-de-camp. The training regimen was completed in October 1914, by which time fighting had largely ceased for the winter. Over the winter of 1914, Gramont and Salaun planned a campaign to break through the Fellsian line, surveying possible sites and marshaling resources.

Valegny Campaign

Through January and February 1915, Salaun's planned Valegny offensive began taking shape, as Laeralian sappers began to dig tunnels beneath the Fellsian lines near the town of Valegny. Valegny, in Cenefort province, was a Fellsian stronghold; breaking through the Fellsian lines there would open the way to a pass leading into High Fells itself. Once the Laeralian sappers had tunneled beneath the Fellsian lines, the tunnels- 14 in all- were filled with 240 tons of explosives. On March 7th, 1915, the explosives were simultaneously detonated, killing an estimated 4,000 Fellsian soldiers instantly and producing a blast which could be heard from Laeralsford. Fellsian forces were stunned and paralyzed by the force of the blast, which was immediately followed by an advance of the 17th Corps. Resistance was slim near the front lines; some units reported reaching Fellsian lines, and the tremendous craters there, unopposed.

In the days following the attack, the 17th Corps advanced swiftly through the four-kilometer gap in the Fellsian lines, advancing as far as six kilometers in a single day- territory gained at a rate unequalled since the start of the war. Their advance was aided by the Fellsian's slowness in responding to the attack, due to damaged communication lines and the capture of Fellsian officers near the salient. It was not until March 13th, nearly a week after the first advance, that a substantial Fellsian counterattack occurred. This was skillfully repulsed by Gramont at the Battle of Qumen, giving the Laeralian forces further time to advance.

Advancing Laeralian forces during the Valegny Campaign.

Exhausted by years of war and stunned by the speed of the Laeralian advance, the Fellsian Army was largely unable to rally and repulse the Laeralian advance. At Pingshui and Saridong, Laeralian forces defeated Fellsian attempts at a counterattack, and the 17th Corps' advance units crossed the pre-war frontier into High Fells on March 30th. Reinforcements from other Laeralian units were thrown in through the Valegny breach to follow up on the advances Salaun's troops had made. The first sustained Laeralian advance during the war, the coverage of the Valegny Campaign made Lt. General Salaun and Major Gramont into war heroes.

By June, the Laeralian advance had slowed due to Fellsian opposition and insurgent activity. Gramont was detached from Salaun's staff and given a field position in late June, commanding front-line troops near Manyeong. The July 10th Chungjin offensive, planned and led by General Lafon of the 11th Corps, was a dismal failure, and the fighting in eastern High Fells slowed as the front line stabilized during fall and winter 1915.

Gramont did lead a notable action in January 1916- the famed Hyesong Raid. The town of Hyesong, located along the Manchaek River, was a regional Fellsian railroad and waterway hub, responsible for supplying troops along much of the nearby portion of the Fellsian front line. As fighting along this section of the front had calmed by mid-winter, Gramont planned a sudden raid on the Hyesong supply depot. During a Minjian religious festival, Zhou Wei-lin, Gramont's aide-de-camp, led a small force of trained Laeralian infiltrators, known as Zhou's Raiders, up the Manchaek River, disguised as a supply barge. The infiltrators reached Hyesong a day later, on January 27th, and set explosives and set fire to an immense supply depot. On their rapid escape down the river back to Laeralian lines, however, they were harried by Fellsian troops, and came under heavy fire.

In the darkness, less than a kilometer from Laeralian lines, the barge ran aground in the shallows. Roused from his sleep to see the evidence of a skirmish northward on the river, Gramont led a force of troops to rescue Zhou's raiders. Catching the Fellsians by surprise in the dark, many of the raiders were rescued from the barge. This skirmish was once again featured heavily in the Laeralian popular press, once again bringing Gramont into the national consciousness.

In April 1916, an armistice was called between Laeral and High Fells, drawing the First Fellsian War to a close. Despite the estimated 800,000 Laeralian soldiers, and countless civilians, who had died during the conflict, Laeral saw little gains from the war, besides some minor territorial readjustments. Along with many other veterans of the conflict, Gramont felt betrayed by the peace agreement, seeing it as minor compared to the sacrifices he and others had made. Gramont and his troops were forced to withdraw from their hard-fought positions and move southward to the border established by the armistice. The 17th Corps was largely kept in Cenefort, responsible for arming local civilians in preparation for future hostilities with High Fells. In October 1916, the 17th Corps was officially dissolved by order of the Ministry of War, in order to reduce costs post-war. Jean-Philippe Salaun himself was the only officer of the Corps kept on active duty; the remaining officers and troops were discharged. Gramont, now unemployed, reached home in November 1916.

-During FFW, Laeral had population 25 million, max soldiers 2.7 million -High Fells had population 18 million, max soldiers 2.2 million