1735: Cassus Belli

Cassus Belli 

The petty states of the Weald and Cantica have lived in peace for many years, but a new tension has arisen with the slow process of industrialisation. The need for raw materials and mineral rights have relit the fires of a long-dormant border dispute along their borderlands, an area previously of little commercial or strategic value but found recently to be rich in shallow coal seams.

Observed with consternation by the Belle Alliance of grand powers on the periphery, increasingly bellicose Cantware leaders pushed the rhetorical into the physical, deploying an expeditionary force across the border and into the Walden shire of Hurst to seize what they consider their sovereign territory.

Cantware Cuirassiers (WIP)

Margravate of Cantica

With a population of over 300,000 Cantica is the largest of the small cluster of countries in North-Eastern Alba. Geographically it forms the foothills of the mountain ranges that cut through Borcester and into fertile ground surrounding the bank of the Tems River. 

As a result the Cantware population are wealthy by Alban standards, their economy with a focus on mercantile trade and commerce and are agriculturally self sufficient, but with a need to import raw materials for the military expansion, and a burgeoning industrial revolution.  

Their population is focused around the major towns: the capital city of Rumney and the cathedral city of Hithe - both on the banks of the Tems. 

Kingdom of (the) Weald

Though large geographically, the meagre Walden populace of 160,000 souls is distributed through a number of hamlets and villages throughout the country due to the mountainous nature of the terrain. 

Weald is primarily a rural agrarian country, but the wool trade through the ports of Cantica has permitted a level of civic development and education beyond what one might expect for such a sparsely spread people.

Fiercely independent, the Wealas language is spoken in all but the most cosmopolitan society and a strong sense of national identity prevails. 

Principality of Barroch

The Kingdom of Barroch was conquered in the mid 13th-century by one of the Walden kings, and though it has local autonomy is technically a vassal of the Weald. Geographically distant from the conflict between the Weald and Cantica, its contributions are likely to be in the form of military aid.

Belle Alliance

The Belle Alliance is the unofficial title given to the leaders of the largest realms in Alba who are united in a system of interconnected alliances for mutual defensc and assistance.