Wars of Expansion
The Wars of Expansion, often referred to in speeches or conversation as The Grand Campaign, was the very first series of military actions by the fledgling state of Falastur, and it marked the beginning and the end of Falastur's existence as a petty island state regarded as unworthy of foreign attention. The campaign was divided into 3 distinct wars, most commonly referred to simply as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd War of Expansion.
1st War of Expansion
The 1st War of Expansion lasted little more than 3 months and was the smallest of the 3 wars. It was little more than a play for popularity at the time, but its success helped create the Falasturian sense of togetherness, and it led the way successively for the wars ahead in Falastur's future. Having ordered the creation of an Army for his small island-state, King Matthew I ordered his cousin (whom he had entasked with the creation of the army) to send all of his soldiers by sea to an island known from English colonial accounts as Lavros Island - the second largest island in the Falastur Island Group, to claim it through fair means or foul in the name of the King. 1,200 soldiers sailed the two hour crossing to the Northern Lavros coast, where they established a base and a camp. Setting off the next day to impose their rule on the natives, they attacked many of the native peoples in their own villages, routing them and slaughtering them with few casualties. However, the sudden onslaught of invaders forced the natives together, and in a final stand they fought back against the Falasturians in the Battle of Laffant, killing a third of the army before they were themselves crushed. Despite their losses, however - a single battle which killed around 1.5% of the population of Falastur at the time - the victory gave the Falasturians great confidence in themselves, and inspired them to even greater loyalty to the King who had brought them success. Shortly after the battle, Matthew I made his only journey to Lavros Island, claiming when he was informed of the victory over the natives, and the capture of the island, "Veni Vidi Vici". The quote was recorded by several individuals there at his visit, and was adopted by his son as the national motto of Falastur. In the aftermath, virtually all of the natives were sold off as slaves, on Falastur Island and throughout the world, and the military encampment on Lavros was made into a minor settlement, named Matthewtown. And then there were none.
2nd War of Expansion
The war had had a profound effect on the Falasturian peoples. Believing themselves capable of any challenge before them, the Falasturian peoples were inspired to greater things in the later years. However, Matthew's son Edward, soon to be King of Falastur as death loomed over his father, had taken the success much stronger to heart, especially as he had been a leading figure in the Falasturian army during the 1st War. Taking the throne on his father's death, Edward wasted mere months before he began plans for the 2nd War of Expansion. With new peoples landing in Terila almost every month in the hope of becoming citizens, recruits for a great upgrading of the military were abundant, each wanting to be part of Falasturian history by winning great battles for their King. Enlargening the Falasturian Army to around 4,000 men, including cavalry and artillerymen, King Edward prepared for a new campaign, and then ordered his forces to capture the largest islands in the Falastur Island Group.
However, the islands were numerous, as were the natives, and the task was too much for the army. Ordered to capture masses of land inhabited by an estimated 70,000 natives capable of armed resistance, as well as the families of the tribal warriors, the 4,000 Falasturian men divided among the islands were incapable of using their superior weaponry to great enough effect to beat the natives. While there were some minor successes, in most places a handful of skirmishes was enough to lead to either massacre of the soldiers, or a hurried retreat off the island. Edward's grandiose dreams of conquest came to almost complete failure. By February 1729, 1 year and 8 months after the soldiers first set out, Edward I was forced to call off the campaign due to excessive losses. By this point only 1 island had been captured of the 12 targetted, only a further 2 had a surviving garrison, and a total of 1,170 men now distributed among the 3 garrisoned islands had survived the campaign. Attempting to salvage something from his faux pas, he sold the few subjugated natives on the captured island into slavery, accumulated his forces, and sent his army to one of the garrisoned islands. As a final mockery, even this move failed, and Edward was forced to order his army back to Vensas, the captured island. Having the remaining natives on the island all sold off into slavery, leaving only the garrison there, he ordered settlements to be made from on the island, and then retreated all the surviving soldiers to Falastur Island. After this, he disappeared from the public eye for over 2 years. Although an exaggerated opinion, feelings both shortly after the 2nd war and to this day are largely summed up by a sentence written by a Falasturian historian of recent years:
"...The 2nd War of Expansion managed only one feat to speak of before being called off: The sailors of the Falasturian Navy were able to create the first accurate maps of the entire Island group..."
3rd War of Expansion
With the enthusiasm of the wars faded, thankfully alongside the Falasturians' spite for their former Monarch, Edward, it was with a genuine surprise that the third War of Expansion was announced by George I in 1757, 4 years into his reign. While hoping to launch a successful endevour to prove himself after his popular replacement of his father had worn down in the public interests, and more confident that with Falastur's population at an unsurprising all-time high his military could also be larger than ever, it was King George's belief that a victorious campaign would prove Falastur to be a strong rising nation, and would leave its prospects wide open to the possibility of expansion beyond the boundaries of the island group. Managing to expand the army to an inspiring 9,000-odd men, George studied and thusly learned from his father's mistakes, deciding to keep the army whole rather than breaking it up, and riskily venturing diplomacy before action. Approaching the islanders one island at a time, King George managed an unexpected deal of success in allying with the tribesmen by having his envoys - a handful of men who had studied the tribesmen of a tiny island off the coast of Falastur Island; one of the few places where the tribespeople had not experienced conflict against Falastur, and thus did not treat the citizens with hatred and violence - by having the tribal peoples informed that he had overthrown "The Tyrant" (referring to his father), and wished peace. Through this deceit, George managed to draw into his trust a large enough number of tribal chiefs, that he was able to thus pacify eight of the twelve islands which formed his primary targets - the same targets his father had chosen - while the remaining four largely rebuked his words, endangering the lives of the envoys several times. Now knowing the allegiances of the islanders, George was able to accumulate his forces before using them to full effect, picking off the hostile islands one at a time, subjugating and enslaving their populations, and ordering the islands now free for colonisation and expansion. At the same time, however, George showed his expert touch as a diplomat by engineering events and instability on the islands largely friendly to him, using the opportunity to turn the islanders who supported him upon those few who still resisted, while moving to form the basis of a unification of the disparate tribes into collective bodies, one per island, and in some cases engineering unrest which, through manipulation and use of force, forced several islands to become dependent on Falasturian troops to maintain the peace, laying the way for Falasturian suzerainity and then domination.
Receiving permission from the island chiefs in 1759 to flatten certain areas of forest so that he could have built new cities and barracks, King George then allowed and strongly encouraged islanders to move to Terila in return, beginning to unite the native peoples with the nation and people of Falastur, while reducing the natives' ability to resist future encroachments upon their liberties. The blessed harmony between Falastur and its new tribal allies was almost shattered when one islander who had moved to Terila returned to his native peoples on one of the smaller islands, bearing news that George was in fact the son of "The Tyrant", and had supported his father's campaign publicly until it turned sour, sparking a riot engulfing the island, although the peace was restored in less than a week by a brutal suppression by the Falasturian Army, slaughtering around 1/3 of the islanders involved, and enslaving the remainder. With this thankfully over, George then began pursing an identical form of diplomacy then conquest or manipulation, bringing the remainder of the island group under his control in a surprisingly short time. The military campaign was completed in March of 1763, marking the end of the 3rd War of Expansion, although full control over and subjugation of the native tribesmen was not fully enacted for another decade.
