War!

"There's nothing like a good war"

We are firm believers in the motivational power of a proper War. By "proper", we mean one with all the cake and trimmings - early rumblings, exchanges of well-phrased but insulting and unacceptable ultimata, heraldic confrontations in Court, rampant war preparations, and so on.

If you ring those bells for long enough, and widely enough, the actual conflict on the field, while still brief in the whole scheme of things, acquires far more import and interest. And interesting things attract attention and attendance and effort, and even encourage people to travel.

Better yet, all the preparations, which can go on for a year or more, provide grist for any number of A&S or martial projects - workshops to make heraldic stuff or warband arms, singing practices (new war songs!), War Balls, War Feasts, fundraisers for new kit - you name it.

Obviously, therefore, our early plans included a jolly good war. Prior to stepping up, we'd already begun arranging an intra-Crescent Isles War which we hoped would boost both our and our neighbour's main events - basically a three-way rumble between ourselves, Darton and Ildhafn, with one home and two away events for each groups over the course of a year. We dearly wanted to get more of our folk travelling and supporting our neighbouring groups, because we thought it would be good for all concerned (we certainly benefit enormously from those from other groups who travel to CF).

This neighbourhood war project was confirmed with the the leadership of our neighbouring groups at our first CF. But, in the end, it stumbled in mid-flight and didn't really achieve our objectives. The main reason was political (and most unexpected); it will be dealt with in a later post. The other reason was that at the same CF, King Stephen proposed a different war to the CI groups, and this was taken up with relish.

Basically, King Stephen asked that we collectively seek to declare war on one of the Australian groups, with the aim of fighting it out just over a year later, at Festival 2006. His main intention, we believe, was to raise the profile of our groups, being new to the Kingdom, and also to provide the many related of a proper war that I listed above.

So the war leaders - myself, H.E. Inigo of Ildhafn and Lady Francesa, Darton's Seneschal, pondered with whom to pick a fight. As luck would have it, we made the perfect choice in first approaching Arnfinr, Baron of Ynys Fawr, proposing that we fight a war over our conflicting claims to primacy in stewardship over the Great White Southern Land (or, as he termed it, the "barren frozen wastelands of Antarctica").

Arnfinr was quick to respond, more belligerent than a very belligerent thing, and also did us a great service by widening the scrap to include claims to the Crescent Isles proper and to its seas (this was slightly helpful later on when certain aspects of the war became politicised - see a later post).

So by our first Baronial Anniversary, we had a wholly unacceptable ultimatum from Arnfinr to promulgate, followed by a call to arms - including an injunction to "beat your ploughshares into swords". And we went to Festival with a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger ultimatum of our own for Festival's Closing Court, which Arnfinr responded to in like fashion. Everything was set for a stirring confrontation the following year.

You'll find more details on katherine's site.

On the back of this, we built several things:

• a "Champion's Oath" for the defence of the Barony, which our Champions were required to take and which any authorised member of the populace may volunteer to take, complete with putting their mark on a scroll. This allowed a repeated bit of theatre along the lines of calling up the militia, though it has not been overly relied on for local skirmishes (we need to balance numbers too often at CF).
  
  
• a novel event - the Southron Gaard Siege Engine Challenge. This was an attempt to introduce another option for war-fighting in the Barony, providing an outlet for those who do not fight heavy and do not want to scamper about with bow and arrows. With six months notice, we had three siege engines built (plus some smaller devices like an excellent three-main perrier), and drew in visitors from outside including the B&B of Politarchopolis and Baron Fulk from Cluain - all keen siege enthusiasts. Downtrack, the effect was less than I'd hoped - the practice of siegecraft in the whole Kingdom has reduced and we've not been able to field crews for our siege engines in battle at CF, though they are often wheeled out for demonstrations there. As with other combat areas, getting new people armoured has been the main obstacle - a lot of kit for a once-a-year thing, at best.
  
  
• preparations to attend Festival 2006 "as" a Barony -- though logistics meant we could not fund our own separate encampment. However, attendance from the CI doubled from an average of 8-10 to 20 for that event; we took a batch of baronial tabards to help the indentity (and we even won the heraldic tourney as a result; in fact CI groups and individuals won a bunch of things...)
  
  
• a bulk armour buy to help equip as many new combatants as possible; this certainly helped, but it is interesting how much equipment (and its cost) is still seen as a limiting factor, years later.
  
  
• a Festival banner project which katherine launched to create large silk banners for the three main CI groups, Kingdom and for Rowany, our hosts at Festival. Since then, the skills and equipment thus gained have fostered a huge increase in the amount of heraldry and colour on display at our major events. For travellers, it also helps that silk is highly transportable.
  
  
• a patriotic song commissioned from Master Crispin Sexi (see "Long May She Stand" in the Southron Gaard Song List). Designed to be sung by many, including those wearing helms and marching about, and works well.
  
  
• justification for more Musters though, curiously, I don't recall an uptick in anything like war practices at the time.
  

Meanwhile, King Stephen's intended benefits were playing out as well. The visibility of the CI groups and people within the Kingdom certainly went up significantly. Canterbury Faire -- partly on the back of unrelentingly good reviews from Yolande -- drew increasingly large numbers across the Straits of Lochac (aka the Tasman). And in the background, diplomacy among the Baronages and with smaller groups were creating coalitions of convenience, all set for a decent conflict at Festival.

By the time the event rolled around, we'd managed to embarrass Arnfinr by signing up much of the Kingdom for our cause, including some groups led by his former flatmates. The overbalance was largely unintentional, and caused him some distress - we accepted some spontaneous offers at CF 06 when, in fairness to Arnfinr, we should have said "no thanks, we're probably sorted". Fortunately, as is common in Lochac's wars and presumably elsewhere, some rebalancing was done at the event. That tweaking of numbers undermines the whole point of diplomacy of course, but beats a day of "200 defeats 50, again", which rapidly gets old and uninteresting.

So battles were fought and victory was declared and the lands of the Crescent Isles groups were deemed safe from future depredations from Ynys Fawr. As part of the peace settlement, we acquired a new citizen, Master Hrolf, Admiral of the Southern Seas. And along the way, SG's primacy as stewards of the GWSL was accepted. For now.

In short:

• Net benefit to all concerned: enormous
  
• Net cost: trivial, apart from some surprising political angles we had not expected
  

Find the right foe, and do it!