The Great War, 1942-49This war was basically a conflict between Brunswick and Mayenne, triggered by the authoritarian regime in Mayenne threatening smaller countries in the region. Arransia tagged along in the hope of putting one over on the old enemy, and in 1942 Charles Ormond's Conservative Government had a very gung-ho and bellicose attitude, but from the start the war had significant political opposition in Arransia. Brunswick’s only eastern coastline is the relatively short stretch between Arransia and Denhulme containing the Tri-Cities. This was obviously of crucial strategic importance in fighting a war against Mayenne which lies to the east. Until 1946, Arransia and Mayenne succeeded in maintaining a blockade of this stretch of coast and prevented the port of Chelsea from operating. However, in 1946, Brunswick won a major naval victory over the Mayonnaise off the coast of Denhulme, owing much to the effective use of carrier-borne aircraft, which opened up the sea lanes into the Tri-Cities and could be regarded as the turning point of the war. This also resulted in the only surviving Arransian battleship, the Great Bear, being stranded in the Terrapin Islands short of fuel and with little prospect of returning home. After this, the Arransian Admiral of the Fleet, David Baxter (1882-1959), suggested that the Mayonnaise should let the Arransians take over part of their remaining fleet, as their admirals and sailors were obviously so pusillanimous that the Arransians could use them much more effectively. This undoubtedly contained an element of truth, but not surprisingly led to him being sacked. After the war, Baxter wrote a controversial book in which he argued that if he had been given supreme command of all allied naval forces from the beginning of the war, and a number of major Mayonnaise warships had been transferred to Arransia, that Brunswick could have been defeated. A lot of post-war Arransian popular fiction explores similar themes, to the frequent irritation of Brunswickians. In the early part of 1947, Mayenne and Arransia made a concerted attempt to counter-attack. In February 1947 140 Arransian and Mayonnaise bombers attacked major government buildings in Aubourg, the single heaviest raid on Brunswick during the war, but they did little damage and also killed over 100 civilians. In May, a major land attack was made at Val de Jérica, spearheaded by the Arransian 2nd Armoured Division, which initially rolled back the Brunswickians over 60 miles, but eventually could not be followed up properly. In the post-war years, this has become increasingly regarded as one of the finest feats of Arransian arms in the country's history, but as many of the units involved controversially continued fighting on the Mayonnaise side after the Armistice it is still viewed in a somewhat equivocal light. The main land fighting in the war took place outside Sabrantia on the borders of Mayenne, and Brunswick was in general happy simply to hold the frontier with Arransia, recognising that a full-on invasion would lead to bloody fighting and probably not affect the ultimate outcome of the conflict. However, this stalemate was broken in 1948 when the Mayonnaise secretly assembled a powerful army in the woods of South Holburn to launch a last-ditch invasion of Brunswick. This was only defeated after it had reached some way to the west of Ynysforgan, after which the Brunswickians advanced about to the present eastern border of South Holburn. Their advance was stemmed by determined Arransian resistance at Whitcastle. Following this, the Brunswickians to some degree lost patience with the Arransians and were much more aggressive in bombing their ports and airfields, so that by the Spring of 1949 any communication between Arransia and Mayenne was difficult, seaborne trade into Arransia had virtually stopped, and oil supplies were close to exhaustion. The Treaty of Ynysforgan between Brunswick and Arransia was signed two months before the end of the war with Mayenne – Brunswick managed to detach Arransia from the alliance by offering relatively generous terms. Arransia was allowed to retain her rather meagre colonies, and such naval vessels that were left, and was not required to pay any reparations. This is always referred to in Arransia as "The Armistice". After this, Arransia theoretically joined the war on the Brunswickian side, but in practice had no stomach for the conflict and made no meaningful contribution beyond a few flying boat reconnaissance patrols. As the new Admiral of the Fleet, Alan Henderson (1891-1978) memorably told his Brunswickian counterpart when asked for assistance, “you shouldn’t have sunk all our f*****g ships then, should you?” The war was brought to an end in July 1949, when Brunswick carried out a demonstration nuclear explosion over a remote moorland area in Mayenne. This killed several thousand sheep but probably less than 50 people. The President of Brunswick made it brutally clear that unless Mayenne called a cease-fire and came to the negotiating table, their cities would rapidly follow. It was obvious at this point that Brunswick would gain ultimate victory, but using only conventional means it would have probably taken another year's hard fighting and cost tens of thousands of lives. The leaders of Mayenne hesitated for an agonising couple of days, but eventually saw sense and agreed to stop the fighting. Denhulme remained neutral throughout the war, but tended to apply the rules of neutrality very strictly in relation to Brunswick while taking a much more liberal attitude to supplies to Arransia. However, as Denhulme has no land frontier with Arransia proper, only with the enclave of St Cuthbert, this was of limited benefit. Brunswick made numerous diplomatic protests about Denhulme’s inconsistent attitude, and at one time even made noises about invading Denhulme, but it is unlikely this would ever have actually happened, as Brunswick would in effect have been doing what she was accusing Mayenne of. As Denhulme was largely self-sufficient and had relatively little international trade, the war did not have too severe an effect on her economy, but it did delay recovery from the depression of the 1930s. Serenity also remained neutral, but was unable to prevent Brunswick making extensive use of the military base on the island, and also using the island's resorts for rest and recuperation for military personnel. Although this was a serious war with major battles and large-scale loss of life, it was fought in a notably more chivalrous spirit than real-life wars of the 20th century, and it fell some way short of "total war". There was no deliberate bombing of cities to intimidate the civilian population*, no unrestricted submarine warfare except in defined exclusion zones, and prisoners of war and occupied territories were generally treated with respect. Nevertheless, it was a deeply scarring experience for the countries concerned and has led them to be extremely reluctant to enter into any military conflict since. In total, about 35,000 Arransian service personnel and 5,000 civilians lost their lives in the war, and most towns and villages have plain, sombre war memorials. * inevitably, there was much collateral damage from imprecise attacks on targets such as docks, shipyards, government buildings and arms factories, but the intention on either side was never to target residential areas as such
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