History of Burgundie: Difference between revisions

Main article: Kiro-Burgundian Wars

In the early 1820s a devastating bark beetle blight that almost eliminated the remaining forests on the Isle of Burgundie. Desperate for more wood as the demand from timber-producing areas outstripped the locals ability to harvest it, some enterprising NordHallish shipwrights contracted the Burgundian North Levantine Trading Company (BNLTC) to occupy the timber camps of the Kiravian island of Wintergen. The timber operations there were well established and those in the newly conquered provinces of Levantine Burgundie were under formed at the mainland wood was considered subpar.

The government of Burgundie offered compensation but Kiravia did not accept terms and set up a government-in-exile. The status of Wintergen remains unsolved between the two nations.

As the reach and influence of the Merchant Marine of Burgundie increased they started to incur the wrath of existing trading powers. Kiravia in particular, with its vast colonial and trading network, saw the resurgence of a powerful maritime Burgundie as problematic. Following the 1823 occupation of the Kiravian island of Wintergen, a tension began to grow between Kiravian and Burgundian merchant sailors until war was tacitly declared on both sides resulting in a delayed start to the Kiro-Burgundian Wars. This time period coincided with the Punthite Quasi-Wars where Burgundian and Kiravian ships started to engage each other in earnest. This erupted with the practice of "clipper baiting" wherein Kiravian ships would capture Bugundian ships and their cargoes. After suffering humiliating defeats for years at the hands of the Kiravians the Burgundian navy and the shipwrights of Burgundie focused its efforts on building smaller and faster ships, primarily on schooner rigged yachts. These ships, while incredibly fast, housed only three guns and could not engage the Kiravian sloops-of-war in direct combat. Both Kiravia and Burgundie endorsed prize courts in their ports.