War of the Seven Provinces

War of the Seven Provinces
Bethune provincial forces skirmish with Maximusian regulars near Forlare, in a painting by Maurice Caillaux
Date April 12th, 1875 - September 28th, 1877 Location Brissac and Lematre Provinces, Laeral Result Maximusian Victory
Belligerents
Laeral Bethune province Arquien province Corday province Felliere province Sarene province Therese province Harcour province Lematre territory Assorted volunteer units	Libertas Omnium Maximus Maximusian Army Assorted volunteer units
Commanders and leaders
Bethune First Minister Auguste Gosselin Corday First Minister Eugène-Denis Lamar Gen. Charles Faucher Gen. Alphonse Dupont de l'Eure Gen. Jules Dupuy	Gen. James Winfield Col. Robert Connor Major Nathan Hopley Major David Blair
Strength
45,000 regulars 6,000 militia	42,000 regulars 12,000 volunteers
Casualties and losses
3,400 killed Thousands wounded	2,950 killed Thousands wounded

The War of the Seven Provinces was an armed conflict between Laeralian and Maximusian forces, lasting from 1875 to 1877. The war began in 1875 when Laeralian settlers in the Albarine Peninsula who had migrated southward from the province of Bethune came into conflict with settlers from Libertas Omnium Maximus. After Bethune provincial militia fired upon the Maximusian settlers, war broke out and Maximusian regulars were called in. As Laeral possessed only a limited national military at the time, and many of Laeral's wealthier northern provinces opposed the war, only the forces of seven Laeralian provinces would actually be involved in the conflict. Laeralian forces were defeated, and the areas comprising Laeral's modern-day Lematre and Brissac provinces were ceded to Libertas Omnium Maximus in the 1877 Treaty of Legrange. In 1925, an uprising by inhabitants of the Brissac region was used as a pretext by Laeral to declare war on Libertas Omnium Maximus as a means of avenging the war and restoring Laeralian national pride.

Background

Throughout the 1870s, Laeralian settlers from Bethune province had been migrating southward in search of land for agriculture and grazing, encountering Maximusian settlers who had already established themselves. The increasing number of Laeralites began to be seen as a threat by local Maximusian authorities, particularly as they began to outnumber Maximusians in the region and discuss annexing the region to Laeral. In addition, Laeralian settlers often refused to hire Maximusians, meaning that Maximusian settlers could not find jobs on the increasing number of Laeralian farms and homesteads. By 1873, Laeralian settlers numbered around 40,000 in the region.

At the 1875 Legrange Convention, a convention of Laeralian settlers declared themselves the Lematre Territory, named for the first Prime Minister of the First Allied Provinces of Laeral. The territory's flag was flown and a provisional constitution adopted, while the provisional government named Jules Dupuy, a former captain in the Bethune militia, as the commander of the Lematre Territorial Militia, with the rank of General. These developments were greeted with alarm by Maximusian settlers, many of whom began to arm themselves.

Conflict

Initial Mobilization

In April of 1875, following the Legrange Convention, the Lematre Territory settlers called for the neighboring Bethune province to send forces to protect their claim. Following debate, the Bethune Parliament voted to send a force of the province's militia to support the Lematre settlers. The preliminary force of around 2000 militiamen arrived in early May, and began to establish defensive positions and confiscate arms belonging to Maximusians in the region.

Laeralian military mobilization was hindered by the structure of the Laeralian government at the time, in which individual Laeralian provinces maintained armies, while the national government maintained a navy. The prospect of war with Libertas Omnium Maximus was controversial in Laeral and split largely along sectional lines: southern provinces, particularly Bethune and Arquien, located on the Albarine Peninsula, were fervently in favor of supporting the Lematre claim, while northern mercantile interests were opposed. In debates in the national parliament, which saw both major parties split on the issue, supporters of the war, known colloquially as Pugilists, were unable to force the passage of a declaration of war, although they did successfully topple the government of Benjamin de Cariés in June 1875.

As the central government was locked in debate on the issue, six further provinces followed Bethune's lead in mobilizing their armies. The quality of these armies varied greatly: some were well-disciplined and equipped with the latest breech-loading rifles, while others were unruly and lacked even proper uniforms. In Corday province, many soldiers were recruited with the promise of free land in Lematre, an offer which the First Minister had little authority to grant. By early summer, troops of the Seven Provinces were being ferried across the Xianhai Strait by boat and barge.

[Insert paragraph here on how LOM nat'l government decided to send troops]

Maximusian cavalry encountered the Bethune and Lematre militia on May 12, 1875, when a brief skirmish at Ribot's Bridge saw the Maximusian cavalry retreat.

War at Sea

SS Gabrielle was among the most celebrated Bethunian blockade runners, completing over a dozen successful voyages past the Maximusian blockade and surviving the war.

The Maximusian leaders quickly realized that a blockade of the Albarine Peninsula would be crucial in order to stem the flow of weapons and troops from the allied provinces in mainland Laeral, and the naval blockade and Laeralian efforts to circumvent it would become a major theater of the conflict. Without the regular navy to call upon, the allied Laeralian provinces called upon privateers to challenge the Maximusian grip on the key harbors of Lyrene, Corday, and Galline, alongside blockade-runners to bring in critical supplies to these cities.

The Maximusian Navy, with limited capacity to blockade ports, chose to center its efforts on Lyrene, Bethune, and Galline, Arquien—the two key ports by which supplies and troops were brought in to the Albarine peninsula. Although the guns of Fort Boucher in Lyrene and Fort Hamon in Arquien dissuaded Maximusian ships from approaching, the Maximusian Navy was capable of interdicting much commerce bound for these ports, and a loose cordon of Maximusian warships around the entire peninsula dissuaded traders and smugglers from bringing their goods to "shadow ports" elsewhere in Bethune, Arquien, and Lematre provinces.

In response to market demand and commissions from provincial governments, numerous ships were constructed and crewed to bring civilian supplies and munitions alike into the peninsula. "Blockade running" was a hazardous business—during the conflict, the average blockade runner made only six successful trips prior to being interdicted and impounded by the Maximusian blockade.

Although the main force of the Laeralian Navy was held back, by parliamentary deadlock, from intervention in the conflict, the belligerent provinces were able to raise forces of privateers and even naval ships unlawfully "seconded" to provincial fleets in order to challenge the Maximusian blockade. In January 1876, for instance, a force of Bethune and Corday ships, including the frigate LSS Consolante "temporarily withdrawn" from the Laeralian Navy, launched a surprise assault on three Maximusian ships at the Battle of Cape Hortense. Taking advantage of the withdrawal of the ironclad MS Brannigan due to damage in a recent storm, the Laeralian force sunk two Maximusian warships and captured the frigate MS Orion as a prize.

Privateers such as the larger-than-life Commodore Armand de Freycinet took on an important role in supplementing Laeralian naval forces. A Metice merchant captain and privateer (by some accounts, a corsair), de Freycinet and his ship Hyène launched raids of Maximusian commerce shipping under a Corday letter of marque, accumulating a small flotilla of ships and being regularized as the core of the Corday provincial navy by late 1876. Launching a daring raid on the Maximusian port at Fort Wagner, Commodore de Freycinet and his men torched two Maximusian navy ships at anchor and plundered naval stores, escaping with few casualties. De Freycinet's raiding would come to an end when his force was mauled by a Maximusian Navy squadron under Commodore NAME at the Battle of XXX on June 6th, 1877.