The Stormaki Aggression

Where One Falls, Another Rises

The Stormaki Aggression is the war that put the Fiuthnollan Commonwealth on the map for many nations around the world. The mighty Kingdom of Stormakt, the predominant local power in Beacepheron, orchestrated an invasion of the young Fiuthnollan nation, less than three decades old but rich with growing immigrant population. Their fleets were still small, their army still green, and their economy is still budding. Nevertheless, the Fiuthnollans fought tooth and nail, and snipped the flower of Stormaki chivalry. This war demonstrated not only the raw potential of the Fiuthnollan state, and its strength now, but also the decadence and weakness of the Stormaki nobility - a truth that threatens to boil over into domestic catastrophe in the aftermath.

Context

The Stormaki Aggression occurred 27 years into the existence of the Fiuthnollan Commonwealth - despite the widespread immigration of people eager to partake in this new and exciting state and government, Fiuthnolla was still a young, relatively weak nation, on the cusp of their economic boom - the Singularity of Cogs, wherein clockwork automatons began to be able to efficiently build more clockwork automatons - but not quite having arrived. In particular, they had a large human population, predominantly Stormaki - the Kingdom of Stormakt had a thriving naval industry that allowed for widescale immigration. This ethnic Stormaki population was used to justify the conflict, in hopes of seizing the island and its resources and technology.
At this time, Stormaki chivalric nobility was considered the best in the world, with knights fresh off of conflicts with the Canate Princes and, more rarely, Tel Iskarra, as well as regular wargames and sparing with the Samurai of Karaz Taruhm. Meanwhile, the Fiuthnollans had emphasized developing their navy to prevent an invasion at all, but the investment needed to build a large enough fleet to police their entire coastline was beyond the capabilities of the Fiuthnollan economy. Thus, the large Stormaki navy would be able to simply overwhelm their coastal defense. Manufactories for breechguns had yet to become common enough to arm the entire army, meaning that muskets were put in the hands of a majority of soldiers.
The international community at large had little interest in intervening, for the most part, largely dismissive of the Fiuthnollan advances in firearms. The exception was the Yalenva Emirates, another technological powerhouse who not only feared the possibility of Stormakt acquiring breechgun and cycler revolver technology and furthermore believed that the religious liberty of the Fiuthnollan state made them a potential conduit to spread their own religion, and began supplying muskets and logistical support to the Fiuthnollans. Many believe this was instrumental to the Fiuthnollan victory, but the general opinion is that this merely shortened the war by one or two years.

Events

The Aggression began with a surprise attack, after Stormakt had widely spread their claims to Fiuthnolla based on their large Stormaki minority. A large fleet was mobilized to transport the thousands of troops, supplies, and horse, resulting in three major battles - The Storm Upon Black Valley, a decisive Stormaki victory that allowed them to push inland; the Siege of Checkpoint Shield, an indecisive siege of a hill fort that lasted for six months before most of the Fiuthnollan Garrison managed to escape due to a valiant holding action by those left behind; and the Red Jacket Massacre, a battle between a small elite unit of Fiuthnollan soldiers, most of which had breechguns, and a large force of knights charging up the mountainside headlong into fire. The deadly charge of the Stormaki knights was blunted by hidden trenches, and when the Fiuthnollans retreated into rougher terrain, the knights were forced to dismount, and close to melee, where they were met by bayonets.  By the end of the battle, the hastily-distributed, undyed white jackets of the Fiuthnollan troops were stained pink near-permanently from the blood of the melee, and the subsequent execution of incapacitated knights, which remains a controversial choice to this day.
While the Red Jacket Massacre was a wake-up call to many Stormaki Urban Militia officers, most of the nobles considered it a fluke, and that the leaders of that unit was foolish and allowed himself to be taken in by rookie mistakes. Their refusal to learn, as well as their command over the Urban Militia, meant that little was learned of consequence. The Fiuthnollan army continued to fall back into the mountains, with marines and National Guard fighting bitterly for every inch of rough terrain in the Tiamat Range. The knights and nobles of Stormakt continued to follow them, despite their ability to advance through the Black Valley. This was not an unfounded decision - the Black Valley was narrow, and it would take much longer to move troops through there and only there than to spread out and fight their way through, not to mention how vulnerable they would be to attacks from the mountains. However, this would nevertheless prove to be their undoing.
Every inch was bought with blood, much more blood than was shed by the Fiuthnollans. And despite the fact that the Stormaki could afford to spend more blood, they were slowly going over-budget. Morale started to melt away, desertion and betrayal ran rampant as Urban Militia and levy troops began to lose faith in their homeland, and more and more of the knights and men-at-arms, the lynchpins of the the Stormaki military strategy, were dying. It is said that an entire generation of the finest knights in the world were slaughtered by enemies they could barely see, their resplendent plate armor defending them as effectively as paper. The Stomaki attempted one more push - they consolidated their devastated forces, and made a decisive push, forcing the Fiuthnollans to respond in kind. 
The final major battle of the war was the Battle of Powderbrook, named for its riverside location and being a major manufactory of gunpowder. Using skirmishing tactics, the Stormaki forces were shepherded and lured towards Powderbrook, and forced to partake in brutal urban warfare in which the Fiuthnollan troops excelled. The large gunpowder stores were leveraged, in the absence of matching bullet supplies, to turn the city into a literal minefield, as bullets and simple trigger devices were used to not only blow up unfortunate enemy troops, but also collapse entire buildings onto their unfortunate occupants. Even the local workforce of clockwork automaton were formed into the 1st Clockwork Maniple, which held a vital passageway through the city to a major arsenal with brute force and raw durability. This battle broke Stormaki morale once in for all, as they looked down at the rivers of blood flowing between the cobblestones.
Skirmishing continued for a time after this - the battle was limply dragged on by the remaining nobles - their pride would not allow King Felix VII Stormakt to concede defeat so soon, despite the ongoing disaster. Nevertheless, eventually, the war was ended as the nobles finally conceded that conquest was impossible at this point, and that their army was being stretched dangerously thin. This was further compounded by an ultimatum by Yalenva - they would have gotten involved if not. The terms of the peace relinquished all captured Stormaki muskets, cannons, horses, and other weapons to the Fiuthnollan state. Furthermore, Stormakt was to relinquish their claims to Fiuthnolla, and recognize the Fiuthnollan state as legitimate. This was followed by a large one-time reparation payment that emptied the Stormaki treasury. 

Outcome

This war destroyed the waning prestige of the Stormaki state, and crippled their military power to an hitherto unseen extent. The power of the monarchy and the aristocracy were hugely weakened, and a series of young, inexperienced, undertrained nobles ascended to power with the death of their parents. By and large, the Stormaki state has been left primed for unrest, and possibly even a civil war or rebellion, especially as the rising urban bourgeois class are beginning to find the ideas espoused by the elven parliament to be interesting, and potentially a good way to improve their ailing government.
Meanwhile, Fiuthnolla gained almost as much as Stormakt lost. Allowed to persist for another year, master engineer Caleb Grat finally completed the first clockwork automaton factory that produced more automatons, before retreating into his passion project, the extraplanar Clockwork City, to waste away in senility and dementia, having barely made it on a regular cycle of Intelligence Potions. This, alongside the large cash injection from the reparation allowed for an economic miracle to take place, driving the Fiuthnollan economy into amazing wealth and power. Immigration spiked as the state was newly legitimized, and then again with the Clockwork economic miracle. This war has allowed the Fiuthnollan state to become the nation in Iocrade experiencing the most precipitous rise.

Information:

Years: 1388-1390
Attacker (Combatants): The Kingdom of Stormakt (140,000 [10,000 Knights; 20,000 Retainers, Squires, and Men-At-Arms; 40,000 Urban Militia; 70,000 Feudal Levy Troops) led by King Felix VII
Defender (Combatants): The Fiuthnollan Commonwealth (50,000) led by Lord Castellan Cyrus El-Hekeem
Outcome: Decisive Fiuthnollan Victory
Casualties: 40,000 Stormaki Casualties Killed, Wounded, Captured or Turned Coat (including over 5,000 knights, many senior and experienced), and 5,000 Fiuthnollan Casualties Killed, Wounded or Captured
Results: Massive power transfer to young nobles in Stormakt, widespread international recognition of Fiuthnolla.

Conflict Type

War