Great Confessional War

Great Confessional War
Part of The Anarchy
The siege of a place
Date May 2nd, 1555 - August 10th, 1575 Location Holy Levantine Empire Result Holy League victory; Catholicism entrenched in the Holy Levantine Empire, previous tolerance edicts revoked, Protestant landholders banished
Belligerents
Protestant Union Gassavelia Urcea under the House of Ronan (to 1565) Lucarnia? Vilauristre Conference Burgondia Estia	Holy League in defense of the Holy Levantine Empire Corcra Faneria House de Weluta (Urcea from 1565) Baylium Bonavix Marialanus Joanusterran mercenaries
Commanders and leaders
King Riordan V King Donnchad III †	Emperor Leo III Rih Cledwyn Wydd-Màrtainn † Rih Conan Wydd-Màrtainn Phillipe d'Everard Siegmar von Willing

The Great Confessional War was a sectarian conflict in the Holy Levantine Empire occurring within the greater context of the Anarchy, though immediately caused by the imperial victory against the Kingdom of Angla in the Nordmontaine War. Protestant forces under King Riordan V and King Donnchad III sought to force the empire to permit individual Levantine states to formally adopt restorationism or reformism, and to discriminate against the Catholic Church. Imperial forces in turn sought to end the Protestant Reform and to ban Protestantism and reformism. The imperial forces ultimately achieved victory, but only after a lengthy conflict marked by brutal fighting.

Protestant forces scored a series of victories in the first years of the war, particularly once the more competent King Donnchad III took the helm of the Protestant Union. But the Holy League regained the advantage in 1565 at the Battle of Drumfree, and following the coronation of Leo III that year, the Holy League rarely found itself on the defense. Imperial forces ultimately achieved a final victory in 1575, and thereafter stripped all Protestant landholders of title, while also undertaking a new inquisition against reformism and restorationism. Leo III rewarded the states of the Holy League, such as Burgundie, with then-vacated former Protestant lands and electorates, and firmly entrenched Catholicism as the official state faith of the empire and predominant social force in Levantia. Protestant leaders only escaped persecution in the newly established Kingdom of Faramount, which was granted independence after betraying the Protestant cause. The empire's intolerant policies prompted a mass exodus of Protestants abroad, a lasting legacy of the conflict.

Campaigns

Ultmar Crusades

__Territory north of Faneria retracted by royal decree from protestant Urcean King Riordan a decade or so prior to Confessional Wars -Cathar Heresy permitted to spread in area -Wedding/festival/religious feast in a city north of then border between Ultmar and Faneria -Fanerian 'liberate' local area along with other gains as compensation for backing Holy League after war ends -Seen as victory in Faneria, still sore over losing land wars previously to combined HLE might which lost a lot of Fiannrian territory and all or Burgundie

Urcean phase

Protestant and Catholic forces had been locked in conflict in Urcea and Gassavelia for five years before becoming a mere front in the Great Confessional War. Urcean King Riordan V had prompted the Urcean War of Religion by abrogating the policy of tolerance that he had pledged to uphold, instead discriminating heavily against Catholics. Catholic Urceans responded by banding together in rebellion, prompting Riordan to align himself with fellow Protestant leaders including the King of Gassavelia. Catholic and Protestant forces fought heavily throughout Urcea between 1550 and 1555 with the Catholics ultimately gaining the advantage in the Battle of Clada in 1554. Nonetheless, Riordan planned to march on Corcra, and to force the empire to accept Protestantism as a legitimate form of Christianity. Riordan saw little success in this effort in the first two years of the Great Confessional War, however, thanks in no small part to Catholic forces having the advantage after Clada.

King Donnchad III reversed the Protestants' fortune in 1557 when he assumed the throne upon Riordan's death, launching a highly successful campaign against the Catholic forces. Donnchad managed to break a Catholic siege of Urceopolis led by Siegmar von Willing in the summer of 1559 before raiding Castle Welute, where he captured Prince Aedanicus, the Catholic heir and son of King Leo I. Donnchad imprisoned Aedanicus in Urceopolis until 1560, when the Protestant King had the Catholic Prince drawn, quartered, and beheaded. Donnchad mounted the head in a public square, and sent pieces of Aedanicus to various Catholic leaders. Donnchad then launched a campaign through Urcea and Gassavelia, scoring a series of victories in 1561 and 1562, leading to the siege of Cana in 1562. Donnchad's efforts were bolstered when Matthaeus the Turncoat betrayed the Catholic cause, launching an equally successful campaign in 1561 and 1562 to conquer Catholic-loyal Eastern Gassavelia, the modern province of Faramount, in Burgundie.

Recognizing the need for new leadership amidst the Protestant advances, the Pope in 1563 proclaimed Leo de Welute as the rightful Urcean King. Leo had launched a successful surprise attack Julianum in 1560 using volunteers from Ultmar and the Ionian Plateau, successfully capturing the Protestant-held city in Northern Urcea. Leo organized these volunteers, and the remnant Catholic forces in the region, into a new army, which he marched South, scoring a series of victories against Protestant garrisons and smaller forces. Donnchad had to abandon the siege of Cana in order to move North to confront Leo's forces, leading to a series of skirmishes between Donnchad and Leo in 1564. Donnchad ultimately avoided a full-scale engagement, however, because he had been assured that Protestant forces from the electorates of Lucarnia and Hollona would reinforce him. Donnchad thus repeatedly ceded territory and strategic advantage, often sacrificing units to cover his retreat, in a doomed bid to buy time for support.

Leo took advantage of Donnchad's hesitance by flanking the Protestant leader in 1565, leading to the landmark Battle of Drumfree. Leo's forces ultimately achieved victory in that bloody engagement, killing Donnchad, and definitively routing his forces. Donnchad's troops fled South, still hoping to find the reinforcements that were supposed to have been in route from Lucarnia and Hollana. But in reality, the two electorates had dispatched their forces East months earlier in a bid to stem the advances of Matthaeus the Betrayer, who in early 1565 again switched sides in the conflict, rejoining the Catholic cause. Ironically, amidst Leo's advance, Lucarna and Hollana withdrew those troops from Gassavelia, allowing Matthaeus to continue his advance largely unopposed. Matthaeus' successful campaign laid the groundwork for the establishment of Faramount.

The Catholic League annihilated the remnants of Donnchad's armies the day after the Battle of Drumfree, clearing the way for the seizure of Urceopolis. The Protestant defenders of the city quickly fled, but Leo did not enter until the Pope had arrived several weeks later. The Pope and Leo entered the city on May 14th, 1565, at which point the Pope crowned Leo as king, ending the Urcean War of Religion, and with it, the Southern campaign of the Great Confessional War.

Derian phase

Siege and sack of Albonne

Further information: Albonne

Albonne was part of the Protestant Union and was besieged for almost a full year by the Holy League from February 19th, 1566-January 3rd, 1567. The siege was led by Captain of the deSeur Mercenary Band, Jean-Luc Rimbault deSeur, leading a Joanusterran mercenary company of 850 men. The siege was intended to be a delaying action to keep Protestant Union from attacking a larger Holy League force deeper in Dericania, but the city was not signification enough to the Union to warrant any concerted focus. There was one attempt at reinforcements in the summer of 1566, but the Joanusterran mercenaries were well dug in and the rains made any approach by cavalry impossible. The siege was broken when the main gates, which the Joanusterrans had broken down or rushed at least three times before, were finally breached on January 3rd, 1567. Much of the city had been abandoned by boat throughout the last year, so there was very little in the way of civilian casualties during the sack itself, but finding that there were no more military wares, and very little of value left in the city, the frustrated mercenaries sacked the city and burned much of it to the ground.

Aftermath

Following the Holy League’s victory in the Battle of Placename in 1573, it was clear that the Protestant Union’s back was broken and that the war would be decided in petty individual treaties between individual Protestant Princes and the unified Holy League. Various abuses and indignities were inflicted on the conquered Protestant princes as their lands fell one by one to the Holy League.

Following the Treaty of TBD on August 10, 1575 the remaining Protestants were declared to be outlaws, functionally being given an ultimatum to convert or be banished through the coastal cities of the Kingdom of Dericania. Of the estimated tens of millions of Levantine Protestants in 1551, only 530,000 remained alive or unconverted in 1575 and of those 493,000 refused to convert and were transported. Southern Levantia became entrenched as a unitary bastion of Catholicism, the Holy Levantine Empire covered all of southern and central Levantia with the exception of Faneria, and an age of colonialism was spurred on by the banishment of the Protestants. The Dragonnades were prosecuted in an effort to bring the expulsion to its comnpletion. The expulsion of the Protestants lead to the establishment of Pharisedoms abroad.

Legacy

The Great Confessional War is widely considered one of the most important events in human history, creating a massive demographic outflow of people from Levantia across the world while cementing the permanent cultural and religious character of the Holy Levantine Empire and the nations that would emerge from it. Despite being a low point in the history of tolerance and the official death of the Levantine Renaissance, it is regarded as a net gain in Levantia and the 17th and 18th centuries were times of wealth and colonial expansion. The Renaissance era was replaced with the Levantine Counterreformation, a period of significant Catholic cultural output and the revival of Church architecture in the Baroque period. Many of the great works of devotional literature would come in the decades following the War.

The Expulsion of the Protestants also saw the proliferation of Christian missionary work. Many Christian minorities outside of the Occidental world owe their existence to this single event. It also kick-started the Age of Sail as it necessitated innovations in ocean-going navigation and vessel types. It also saw the spread of renaissance ideas and over time became a nexus point that blended eastern and western canon and academics and, for about 150 years many of the leading thinkers in the Occidental world were actually based in Alshar and Audonia.

The Occidental Enlightenment started with and was at critical moments led by the colonials of the Burgoignesc Colonial Empire.