THE GENNISH WAR
ALBISH INVASION
The long rivalry between Albelond and Beaugencie has once again erupted into open war. Though fighting between the two kingdoms has flared repeatedly across generations, the present campaign has been shaped by the Albish invasion of northeastern Beaugencie and the increasingly bitter political divisions it has exposed within the Gennish court.
The current Albish army is commanded by Lord Robert de Marman, Earl of Pitney and Lord Marshal of the Army of Albelond, one of the kingdom’s most respected commanders. Rather than become trapped before every fortified place in his path, Robert drove rapidly through the Duchy of Caronne, striking villages and towns, scattering local resistance, and forcing much of the countryside to acknowledge the Albish presence. Only two cities were seriously invested, both of which fell after comparatively short sieges. Small garrisons were left behind to hold them while the greater part of the army continued into neighbouring Picotaine.
Throughout the advance, the Gennish army under Guillaume II de Picotaine, Marshal of Beaugencie, called Chembaut, remained close behind. Marshal Chembaut refused to offer Robert the decisive battle he wanted while the Albish still held the advantage. Instead, he harassed the line of march, threatened stragglers and supply movements, and waited for the invading army to commit itself somewhere less favourable, the city of Fontregny.
The city stands upon the Renne, a major tributary flowing north into the Runk, and commands one of the most important routes through northern Picotaine. Its strategic value made it extremely difficult for the Albish to ignore, yet its situation also made it one of the hardest places in the region to take. Marshes, canals, flooded meadows, embankments, raised causeways, fortified bridges, sluices, and outer defensive works surround the city and restrict the movement of men, horses, wagons, and siege engines.
Chembaut understood that Fontregny could hold the Albish in place for months. Robert understood the same thing and chose to besiege it anyway.
Chembaut hoped the city would fix the Albish army in place long enough for him to threaten its communications and punish exposed detachments. Robert judged that leaving such a fortress untaken behind his advance would endanger the entire campaign. Each believed the commitment could ultimately be turned against the other.
THE SIEGE OF FONTREGNY
The Siege of Fontregny has now continued for nearly a year.
Robert de Marman remains personally before the city with the greater part of the Albish army. The defenders, commanded locally under Comté Amaury de Renne have made full use of the difficult country surrounding them. Approaches have been flooded, roads narrowed to causeways, and bridges fortified or destroyed as required.
Above ground, trebuchets and cannon bombard the walls and outer works when they're not sinking in the mud, while the defenders repair breaches and answer with their own artillery. Below ground, Albish sappers and Gennish counter-sappers dig beneath the fortifications, listening for enemy workings through the earth. Galleries are collapsed, tunnels flooded or smoked out, and men sometimes meet one another underground in cramped and brutal hand-to-hand fighting.
The siege has become a contest of endurance as much as force. Mud, water, disease, supply, and the difficulty of moving heavy equipment through the surrounding wetlands have slowed every Albish effort to force a decisive breach.
Chembaut, however, has not remained shut inside the city. He continues to operate in the surrounding countryside with a mobile field force, striking where Robert’s army becomes vulnerable and refusing to allow the siege to become the whole war.
ROBERT AND CHEMBAUT
Robert de Marman and Marshal Chembaut are widely regarded as two of the finest commanders presently serving in the conflict.
Their campaigns have become a prolonged contest of manoeuvre, feint, deception, and counterattack. Chembaut is the more aggressive of the two, quick to exploit a momentary weakness and willing to take calculated risks when he believes the opportunity is worth it. Robert is generally more patient, preferring to shape the field through positioning, supply, political pressure, and deliberate manoeuvre before committing himself.
Neither has consistently gained the upper hand.
Despite serving opposing crowns, the two commanders are said to hold considerable respect for one another and to regard their rivalry almost as a private contest of skill. Both are great nobles whose defeat would more likely end in capture and ransom than execution, lending their encounters a degree of chivalric familiarity even while the soldiers beneath them suffer the full consequences of the war.
THE PICOTS AND AUBINISTS
The war has also deepened divisions within Beaugencie itself.
The Picots, led by Chembaut, support continuing the war until the Albish are driven from Gennish territory. They argue that the Marshal must be allowed to conduct the defence of the kingdom without constant interference from the royal court.
The Aubinists, led by Enguerrand d’Aubin, Duc de Rivelon, believe the cost of continued resistance has become dangerously high. They blame Chembaut for earlier territorial losses in Caronne and argue that negotiations with Albelond should at least be pursued before more of the kingdom is devastated.
The disagreement is not simply one between soldiers and politicians. Many Aubinists are experienced captains and men-at-arms who have fought extensively in earlier campaigns. Their support for negotiation comes from a belief that the war is becoming ruinously expensive, not from unwillingness to fight.
The dispute became openly violent with the Murder of Hugues d’Aubin, Enguerrand’s younger brother, who was killed by an unidentified member of Chembaut’s following after insults exchanged between rival soldiers in the streets of Loury suddenly gave way to fighting.
Since then, political rivalry has hardened into armed conflict, with several Picot-held fortifications in southern Caronne being besieged by Aubinist forces under the false pretense of illegally disobeying Royal command. Robert de Marman has been quick to recognize the value of this division. He has advised King Philip III to entertain Aubinist hopes for negotiation without committing himself too readily to peace. A divided Beaugencie is far less dangerous than a united one, and so long as the Aubinists believe a settlement remains possible, they have reason to continue opposing Marshal Chembaut’s conduct of the war.
THE BATTLE OF FLODHAM FIELD
The most recent major engagement of the war is the Battle of Flodham Field.
A body of Albish reinforcements had begun assembling near Flodham, a small Albish town north of the frontier and the nearest significant settlement to Fontregny. Their purpose was to strengthen the force engaged in the siege.
Chembaut learned of the concentration before the reinforcements had fully assembled and marched north to strike them.
The Albish had enough warning to offer resistance, but not enough time to organize properly. Some contingents reached the field before others, while baggage, horses, arriving troops, hedges, drainage ditches, field boundaries, and narrow roads disrupted attempts to form a coherent line.
Chembaut attacked before the force could fully come together and exploited the confusion ruthlessly.
The resulting battle ended in a crushing Albish defeat upon their own soil. Important captains were lost or captured, standards and baggage were taken, and the survivors were scattered back toward Flodham and the northern roads. It was not a complete annihilation, but the force was badly broken before it could reach Fontregny.
Robert de Marman was not present at the battle. He remained with the main Albish army before the city.
The victory has greatly strengthened Chembaut’s political position. To the Picots, Flodham is proof that Albelond can still be defeated and that continued resistance is justified. To the Aubinists, the victory does not erase the losses already suffered or the danger of allowing the war to continue indefinitely.
PRESENT DAY
It is presently the late afternoon of the Battle of Flodham Field.
Chembaut has won one of the greatest Gennish victories of the current campaign. The dead are still being counted, prisoners gathered, wounded tended, and captured equipment sorted upon the field.
To the south, the Siege of Fontregny continues.
Robert de Marman remains before the city with the greater part of the Albish army, now aware that the reinforcements expected from the north have been destroyed.
GENNISH WAR
Lord Robert de Marman rallies his men against the left flank of the Gennish army
Political Map of the Gennish War.
The most recent campaign is taking place within the red circle
Date
1349 – Present (intermittent)
Location
Status
Ongoing
Territorial
changes
-
Beaugencie loses the western polities of Marmondie, Lemagne, and Molinay in 1350 and 1351
-
Albelond loses the tidal fortress of L'île Saint-Éliard in 1374
-
Albish invasion of Caronne and Picotaine, Present
BELLIGERENTS
COMMANDERS AND LEADERS
Renaut IV, King of Beaugencie
Philip III, King of Albelond
Marshal Chembaut
Robert de Marman
Enguerrand d'Aubin
Marshal Chembaut, Duke of Picotaine, and leader of the Picot faction
Lord Robert de Marman, Earl of Pitney and Lord Marshal of the Army of Albelond
A Gennish Knight wearing the Cross of St. Beraut, the yellow bend of the Aubinist faction, and his own personal heraldry on his shield
LAMENT
The victory at Flodham Field is only hours old when the world changes.
By late evening, the surviving Albish have withdrawn from the field, many taking shelter in and around Flodham, while the victorious Gennish remain among the dead. Wounded men are tended, prisoners gathered, bodies identified, horses recovered, and the losses of both armies counted. What remains of the day's light fades over a battlefield still thick with corpses. Then the fog rolls in.
At first there is little to distinguish it from an ordinary evening mist spreading across the low ground. Visibility shortens, men begin calling to one another through the haze, and horses grow increasingly uneasy. Before long, shouting can be heard from parts of the field where no fighting should remain.
The dead begin to rise. Albish and Gennish corpses alike return among the living, turning the battlefield into chaos almost at once. There is no single enemy line to face and no direction from which the attack comes. Men killed only hours earlier rise among the very soldiers gathering their bodies, while the thickening fog makes it increasingly difficult for officers to understand what is happening beyond a few dozen paces.
From Flodham itself, almost nothing of the slaughter can be seen. Those within the town hear renewed fighting somewhere beyond the mist: shouted orders, screaming men, frightened horses, and the distant clash of weapons. Before long, bloodied and riderless horses begin emerging from the fog and fleeing toward the town.
Marshal Chembaut survives the disaster and escapes south toward Picotaine with a portion of his army, but the force that had celebrated victory only hours earlier is devastated.
At Fontregny, the siege is still underway when the Fog reaches the region. Albish and Gennish soldiers remain separated by walls, trenches, flooded ground, siege works, and underground galleries, unaware that the siege which has consumed them for the past year is about to become meaningless.
An Albish longbowman, slain only recently at the Battle of Flodham Field, now walks again as one of the dead, driven by an insatiable hunger for the flesh of the living.