[NATION:] Ludobravia

History

The political history of Ludobravia stretches back to the year 1287, when the dukedoms of Altobravia and Bassobravia united to form the Kingdom of Bravia, dominating what is now the northernmost third of Ludobravia. For much of its history, the Kingdom of Bravia was at war with the three smaller kingdoms to the south: Caria, Tiel-Tiersel and Schweigelstein; as well as fending off sporadic raids and attacks from the neighbouring <government type> of <country above> to the north.
In 1382, <country above> launched a concerted attack on the Bravian nations and subjugated all of them in quick succession. <Country above>’s hold on Bravia persisted throughout the 15th Century, with numerous rebellions being consistently crushed by the <countryabovian> occupiers.
By the latter half of the 16th Century, however, the <countryabovian> grip on the Bravian valleys was weakening, and a new wave of nationalism swept through the region. Tiel-Tiersel rebelled in 1557, and Caria and Schweigelstein offered their allegiance in return for rights as semi-autonomous protectorates in the Tripartite Alliance. The governors of Altobravia and Bassobravia, however, ensured that their territories maintained their subservience to <country above>, and in 1558 a combined <countryabovian>-Bravian army under general <counntryabovian sounding name> marched south to invade Tiel-Tiersel. The Tripartite army was led by General Augustin Fleme, a merchant-turned-soldier who had been hastily awarded command of the Tripartite army. The two armies clashed at the Battle of Hildeglade, where a decisive <countryabovian> cavalry charge smashed the Carian right wing and forced a rout of the Tripartite army. Subsequent engagements proved the superiority of <countryabovian> drill training, and the Tripartite army was forced into a campaign of guerrilla warfare in order to stop the armies now rampaging through the Tripartite kingdoms. Notable in this campaign was the death of General Fleme at Boskowe Wood in late 1559 when his troop of Tielian marauders was encircled in the snow-covered pine forests of northeastern Tiel-Tiersel. The General and his men resolved to stand their ground and fight to the last man, and in the bitter hand-to-hand combat that followed, Fleme was cut down along with his personal standard bearer. The Tielians themselves were only saved from utter annihilation by the timely arrival of the Schweigelstein Dragoons, an elite mobile skirmishing force, whose devastating charge collapsed the <countryabovian> flank and transformed a certain victory into an ignominious defeat. To this day, the 12th Schweigelstein Regiment bears the name “Sword Sabres” after the famous action, and an allusion to it appears in the second verse of the national anthem Ludobravia!.
Heavy fighting continued all across the lower valleys of the Bravian regions, with both sides gaining victories and suffering losses. In mid-1560, however, the flagging independence movement was revived by the emergence of Baron Ludo Mols, a distant descendant of the old Tielian royal family, who reluctantly agreed to leave his mountainous stronghold and act as a figurehead for the revolutionaries. Accounts from the time show that the baron was initially sceptical of any chance of victory, as the <countryabovians> were marching in an army of ten thousand men from the north, but this changed when he was given command of the newly-reformed Tripartite army, which had been equipped with the latest weaponry from <another Europan country> and secretly drilled away from the front lines. Seeing the chance for victory in a fresh new army, the Baron mobilised his own household to support the war effort and drew up a new banner for the independence army; a tricolour of green for the valleys, white for the snows and grey for the mountains and skies of the Bravia-Tripartite region. To this standard rallied a fresh wave of recruits as well as over a thousand mercenaries from neighbouring states.
The Tripartite Army met the <countryabovian> Army in the Valley of the River Opol late on the 12th of December, 1560. The river was frozen over and each army was drawn up on one of its gently rising banks. The <countryabovian> army consisted of roughly 12,000 troops; four thousand <countryabovians> comprising the centre and right wing of their army apiece, and four thousand footsoldiers from the occupied Bravian territories. In opposition to them, the Tripartites could only muster eight thousand men total. Baron Ludo placed three thousand Tielians on his left flank, a further three thousand Carians and Schweigels in his centre, and 1200 mercenaries on his right flank to face the Bravians. On the extremes of his army he placed 400 cavalry apiece, ensuring that the elite Schweigelstein Dragoons were positioned to watch over the mercenary right.