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by Belle ilse en terre. . 13 reads.

The Founding of the Ilse

The following list chronicles the military and political campaign that allowed Maxilimilen de Blanchard to be proclaimed the first King of Belle Ilse en Terre, as well as the establishment of fourteen modern ruling houses of the Ilse.

Context
After landing on the western edge of Belle Île, Maximilien sent envoys to the Grand Duke, who agreed to meet him on 8 June, just before the Grand Duke was riding off to battle the Lortiks encroaching in the Southwest; thus the meeting was brief and decisive. Maximilien would deal with a peasant revolt in the port of Secheaux (the local lord had also been killed) over the Grand Duke's levy, and would then become lord over that area. Maximilien and his company set off for Secheaux.

Prelude
Maximilien, after consulting Armand and several others, resolved to use a show of force to quell the peasants, whilst resolving to promise a lenient rule. However, observing the Frenchmen unload from the ships and discovering that they were arrayed for battle, the peasants organised and began to trickle out of Secheaux. The peasants gradually drifted west of the city in three clumps, the farthest of which reached a shallow creek running west of the city. The central clump was on some hills nearby, while the last clump had just exited the city. The revolt leader, self-identified as Jacques Liberté, was with the central group on a horse.

Armand, who was with fifty other Frenchmen mounted on a mix of Verdonian and local horses stood on a hill a bit opposite of the stream, to their right on another across from the central group of peasants were cannon from the Ilsan ships and a group of men with muskets. The rest of the Frenchmen were on a third group of hills before a windmill with a few other buildings, roughly opposite the straggling peasants from Secheaux. They had about a hundred and twenty musket-men, and several cannon as well.

Battle
The peasants arriving slowly, Ilsan artillery bombarded them as the arrive, and though few were injured, a great many peasants in the centre scattered, running to the sea before collecting themselves again, after which they began moving forwards once more towards the French. Jacques meanwhile ushered the peasants who had not routed towards the mill, which would provide some protection from the cannons. However, the French infantry, with Maximilien, rushed over and occupied the mill first, with more musket men following behind. Jacques, and his counterparts among the other peasants, performed an amazing manoeuvre with great haste, partially surrounding the mill with pike men, seizing another hill to the right of the French right, and advancing towards the French centre. At this point, Maximilien and the musket-men at the mill fired a volley into one group of pikes, and then charged. Several Frenchmen were injured or died, but the volley was effective, and the peasants scattered and only reorganised near the city. The musketry and cannon fire drove away the central group of peasants, leaving only those who had stayed with Jacques. These peasants then charged the mill, but there pikes were largely ineffective, and constant musket fire cause them to also run to the sea, were Jacques finally gathered them together (though later accounts suggest he was also frightened by the fighting around the mill). A group of French men then launched a bayonet charge uphill at the remaining peasants in the centre, and took the hill with high losses, about twenty dead or wounded. These peasants also scattered to the sea, where they were rallied by Jacques. The French men who had actively been fighting both on the centre hill and at the mill retreated to where they had been at the beginning of the first French bombardment. Another peasant unit re-occupied the central hill, and Jacques started to ride towards the mill alone, probably to gather whatever peasants may have been there. The French began to bombard the peasants once more, again ineffectively, and Armand rode with the cavalry to the centre. Meanwhile, the peasants on the far left began moving up the creek under inaccurate cannon fire. Other peasants moved up to the hills behind the mill. Armand's cavalry then rode towards mill, and chances upon Jacques and a few peasants, who scattered, and Jacques was captured by Armand. The peasants, seeing their leader in enemy hands, began amassing around Armand, who with a quick charge drove off a large group. A second group then made ready to attack, but their pikes were not put down fast enough, and Armand's cavalry slaughtered them, prompting the peasants to begin surrendering en masse, and ending the battle. About forty peasants died, as well as eight Frenchmen, and thirty Frenchmen were wounded, as well as over a hundred peasants.

Aftermath
After the battle, Maximilien had himself proclaimed lord, and renamed the city Port de Belle Île. Jacques, though forced to change his surname, was befriended an began urging the peasants to accept Maximilien as their lord. Maximilien meanwhile pursued a policy of clemency and promise extrication, forcing all men to a swear an oath of personal loyalty to him. He also Catholicised them. These deeds he balanced by fairness in law and taxation, and almost eradicating local banditry, for muskets were far superior to anything the bandits had, and indeed, under the guise of self defense, Maximilien trained much of the male population the use of muskets, gradually building a formidable army. The Grand Duke was not blind to this militancy, and he resolved to end it by bring his retinue and forcing an oath of fealty. However, emboldened by their weapons and Maximilien's informal approval, the Grand Duke's army was worsted in a short skirmish at the border, and Maximilien was never compelled to take an oath.

Context
With security on land in Port de Belle Île, the issue of piracy grew increasingly apparent. The peace with Lortik Empire had brought temporary security, but had also caused many of the Lortik knight caste, especially those with little land, for the previous war had gone badly for Lortika, to plunder merchant ships around the Ilse. The five ships that had brought the French to Belle Île were repurposed as patrol vessels, and Maximilien himself often joined such cruises. It was on one of these cruises that Maximilien encountered the pirate Sir Aethelred Tolly, who had been knighted before a particularly long and bloody battle with the Angern that saw the destruction of his village. With the formalisation of the truce, Sir Tolly, having no property beyond a bit of armour and a single set of clothes, joined a Lortik corsair ship, and used his title and daring to have himself elected captain. Sir Tolly, hearing of the rich prospects and supposedly invincible French ships sought to make a trial of them. After a short and one-sided combat, Sir Tolly raised the white flag, and Maximilien and he had a short discussion on the deck of the French ship. Sir Tolly, sensing Maximilien's dissatisfaction with the small terrotory he had, began by apologising for piracy, which allowed him to lament the weakened state of the Lortik empire, and its weakened hold on many of its vassals, and its own decay. The two conspired to seize the fiefdom of Toullet, by taking Forness, its biggest town.

Prelude
Maximilien and Sir Tolly met on 15 August at a small bridge town before Forness. Sir Tolly had brought some pikemen he had scrounged together and a large force of heavily armed and mounted knights, who had come from the interior to the west of the city. North of them, having disembarked about a mile a way, were about a thousand Blanchardais, mixed French and residents of Belle Île who supported Maximilien's bid at conquest. Cavalry with Armand stayed nearest to Sir Tolly next to a forest, with Blanchardais infantry and artillery on a hill about twenty meters away, across from the main bridge and the town. A second line of hills north of them had the main Blanchardais force, near a second bridge and across from the source of the shallow river. These men, making up the Blanchardais left, were across from another set of hills where a large force of pike were, being placed there by Lord Andersen, the ruler of the Toullet fiefdom. Lord Andersen had been driven to hasty preparations, and had scattered his pikemen along the stream, leaving some on another hill across from the second bridge, another group north of and within the town, with cannon on the hill behind, and a final group that was fording the stream across from Sir Tolly in a particularly forested stretch which hid them from view. Lord Andersen himself was with a large group of mounted soldiers and knights behind and south of the town.

Battle
Taking advantage of the relative inactivity of Andersen's pikes, Blanchardais cannon began moving forward towards the bridges, one group across from the town, and another across from a hill with pikemen on it. Lord Andersen began ordering his cavalry forward towards the town, and the group of peasants of the Blanchardais right moved forward and their harquebusiers started shooting at Tolly's knights from the forest. In response, Tolly's knights and pike charged the forest, but eventually withdrew after failing to drive back the enemy. Both groups tool high casualties. Blanchardais cannon drove the towns garrison out at around the same time, though their bombardment attracted attention, and suddenly Lord Andersen's retinue of knights charged the cannon, killing or routing the entire artillery crew. However, musketry and a daring charge by Armand shattered and destroyed these knights, many of whom fled or surrendered. Sir Tolly then charged the militia in the forest again, killing many and routing them thoroughly. On the Blanchardais left, musketmen began skirmishing with the pikemen on the hill, and killing many of them. These pikemen retreated down the hill they were on, and were replaced by another group of pikes, who began shooting back. Lord Andersen's light cavalry then charged a group of Blanchardais' muskets across the bridge, but where driven back, though the Blanchardais were shaken by the attack, and withdrew to a large copse of trees. Meanwhile, the surviving unit of Blanchardais artillery was ineffectively bombarding pikemen concentrated on a hill above the second bridge. On the Blanchardais, the fresh unit of pikemen charged some of the Blanchardais musketmen, both sides suffering heavily, being as the pikemen had maintained a loose formation, which quickly dissolved into a confusing melee. In the midst of this confusion, Sir Erik, a younger brother of Lord Andersen died from a bayonet wound. On the Blanchardais right, Lord Andersen had taken marched up with a group of pikes and drove off Sir Tolly's pikes who were nearby. On the Blanchardais, musket fire shredded the attacking pikes (the engaged Blanchardais having retreated), who fled, pursued by the lightly equipped musket men who had rallied. At the same time, Lord Andersen charged Sir Tolly and his knights with the pikemen, and slew Sir Tolly himself in a short duel. The knights routed and were slaughtered, and Lord Andersen was confident of victory, when news came to him both of the death of his brother, and the complete collapse of his right flank, where his levies were now scattered. The majority of the Blanchardais army being intact, and his own inability to escape back across the creek, along with the indefensibility of Forness, convinced him to surrender, and indeed, many of his soldiers were now retreating from the battlefield. He surrendered when Armand arrived.

Aftermath
Losses during the battle were calculated to be about eight hundred dead and wounded, though remarkably less than a hundred of these came from the Blanchardais, who had won the city with few losses of the own. The fact that Sir Tolly and his soldiers and knights were slain contributed even more to the myth of French invincibility on the field of battle. Lord Andersen swore fealty to Maximilien, though Maximilien proceeded to depose him and gave the city instead to the deceased Sir Tolly's son, also names Aethelread, ostensibly as a token of gratitude, though the son, being young even by Lortik standards, was 'helped' by regents who maintained the image of fairness which Maximilien sought. A second result of the battle was general rebellion within the Lortik empire, and many lords and knights flocked to serve under Maximilien's fleur de lis. With a large army, now well over five thousand soldiers, Maximilien marched on the Lortik capital, Ost-in-Edhil, and sent his elder son, Armand, on a raid to defeat soldiers being assembled by the Duke of Daalgard.

Belle ilse en terre

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