Cantaire

Kingdom of Cantaire Reino da Cantara
Flag
Motto: Xuntos restauramos o mundo (Cantairean "Together we restore the world")
Anthem: Canción dos cantarois (Cantairean "Song of the Cantaireans")
Location of Cantaire in Messenia
Capital and largest city	Alba
Official languages	Cantairean
Recognised regional languages	Samezeau
Religion	Cairony
• Argan	Orthodox Cantairean
Demonym	Cantairean
Government
• King	Martín II
Legislature	Parliament of Cantaire
Historical outline
• Establishment of first kingdom	1617
• Cantairean Partition War	1645-49
• Establishment of second kingdom	1729
• Cantairean Purity War	1826-29
• Sandoval coup	1977
• Alban Intervention	1992
• Castras Agreement and restoration of civilian rule	25 Petrial 1992
Area
• Total	103,123 km2 (39,816 sq mi) (66th)
Population
• 2022 estimate	10,621,698
• Density	103/km2 (266.8/sq mi)
Currency	León (CAL)
Time zone	IAT-M

The Kingdom of Cantaire (Cantairean Cantara) is a landlocked country in northern Messenia, oriented roughly north-east to south-west and located in the south-eastern part of the Sabamic Plain. It is bordered to the north by Savam, to the east by Ceresora, to the south by Tisana and to the west by Brex-Sarre.

Etymology

The origin of the name Cantaire is not known with certainty, but has historically been strongly linked to the country’s predominant Cairan faith; parts of the region were known for their people’s proficiency as singers in Cairan devotionals (thus emerging through the Cantairean verb cantar, “to sing”). While this is not completely accepted as a derivation, it is still widely cited today.

Geography

Cantaire is located in the eastern Sabamic Plain, almost exclusively on the left bank of the Génestre river (which, thus, forms most of the country’s southern and eastern borders); the country’s south falls into the Upper Génestre region, while the north belongs to the Lower Génestre. The dividing point between the two regions is the Celorio Falls (Cataratas do Celorio), the last major waterfalls on the Génestre, which are located some 55 kilometres downstream from the confluence with the Montone. There is a clear division in terms of terrain between the two regions; the north is largely flat, with the exception of some projections of Estologne in the north-west, while the south is rougher and hilly, with summits reaching 800 metres above sea level.

The Cercalles are geologically connected to the Brexian Uplands and the Galban Massif to their west, as well as to the Monts d'Estologne to their north, although they are considered a separate massif in geomorphological and historiographic terms. They are bounded to their south and west by the valley of the Génestre, and to their west and north by the valley of the Réale, which flows into Sarre. The Cercalles summits form a crescent shape facing eastward, with the river Orbán carving a course through their centre until it joins the Génestre, 35 kilometres upstream from the Celorio Falls. Although the highest summit is the Pico da Aguia at 812 metres, the average peak altitude is about 600 metres. Terrain is moderately severe, and the Cercalles have historically had low population density with dense forest cover, even more than the lower-lying Estologne to their north. Most of the population of southern Cantaire is concentrated along the course of the Génestre, which carved a wide valley downstream from the Génestre Gorge in Brex-Sarre.

Northern Cantaire is a rough rectangle bounded by the Cercalles to the south, the Génestre to the east, the Réale and the Dou to the west, and the Dou and Lake Pusile, the southern of the Twin Lakes, to the north. Most of this area is considered to be part of the Verbian Country.

The capital city of Alba is located on the left bank of the Génestre, at the confluence with the Ter, a right-bank tributary entering from Ceresora, where it forms the boundary between the Ceresoran states of Vallinia and Astredo.

History

Antiquity

In the pre-Cairan Era period there are some contested attestations of distant tribute raids in parts of the modern Sabamic country by the Castopolite Empire; these are seen as inspiring some elements of the Sabamic heroic legend of Sabul. Clearer physical evidence exists for much of what is now southern Cantaire falling to Castopol; the area around Alba was largely the empire’s northernmost outpost, and their encampment there became the seed-bed of the modern city.

Southern Cantaire and parts of the Haute-Génestre were likewise a liminal zone for the Neokos Empire, with Alba similarly marking their furthest push into the northlands, while the north fell largely into the historic core of Sabamic culture. With the re-emergence of a more fractious and feuding Cairony after the fall of the Secote Empire, Cantaire became a flashpoint for the Cairan Nihilist cults during the later twelfth century.

House of Obio

After the break-up of the Montalbian Empire – which controlled virtually the entirety of modern Cantaire before its fragmentation in the early 14th century – the region remained divided between multiple polities and small states, squeezed between the growing estates of the various Savamese realms to the north and Vallinia in the east. At the time, there was a cultural continuum from Occois to modern Cantaire (and, to some extent, extending further to Tisana), as well as the Ceresoran state of Astedro on the right bank of the Génestre.

The first defined state using the name Cantaire dates to 1537, when Nivelo d’Obio established the house which bore his name in Alba; and the region took something closer to its modern shape from the early 17th century, as Leoncio d’Obio began a concerted campaign of military conquest and assimilation which brought under his hand most of the Cantairean states and modern Occois. He was crowned as the first king of Cantaire in 1617.

Partition and the interregnum

However, Obio’s pugnacity on the battlefield outstripped any talents in state-building that he may have posssessed. The Cantairean territories were arguably united more by its resentment of his harsh hand than anything else. His death in 1642 and the clumsy management of his heir Augusto gave the more fractious components all the opportunity that they needed to reassert themselves, and the return of the old status quo drew the attention of powerful neighbours eager to capitalise on the squabbling which now broke out.

Dordanie and the Ceresoran Empire fought between 1645 and 1649 in a bid to take control over the whole kingdom, in what became a disorderly stand-off and an untidy partition of Cantaire between them. Dordanie claimed Cantairean Occois, while the rest of the country was granted to Ceresora in what could be regarded as a technical victory. Marceros and its strategic fortress passed into direct Vallinian control, solidifying Ceresoran control over the Génestre’s right bank; the rump Cantaire remained an officially independent kingdom, but with Augusto d'Obio dead and the throne now vacant, if not actually removed from the latrones board, a Ceresoran “viceroy” was now its nominal ruler with the Empire at his back.

This situation was underscored by the Treaty of Gué-le-Château at the end of the Fifteen Years’ War in 1688. The Ceresoran house of Bragoni was barred from placing a family member on the Cantairean throne, and Marceros came back into Cantairean control, but the treaty confirmed the direct vassalage between Cantaire and Ceresora, with the Viceroy remaining in place until 1729.

Return to independence

Cantaire’s re-emergence as an independent actor on the world stage was the result of forces which began to gather speed in the early 18th century, and its new self-assertio became a background influence on its patron Ceresora during the Second Benovian War (1724-28). The beleaguered Queen Silvestra and her advisors had been knocked drastically off-balance by the war and the subsequent Treaty of Guestel and were in no position to counter Cantairean threats of rebellion if their independent monarchy were not revived. In this way Marcio Aguado do Castro, a distant relative of the now-extinct house of Obio and one of the country’s most respected figures, was able to oust the sitting Viceroy Lucio Ventedestra and be crowned as king in 1729, ending almost a century of Ceresoran control.

The period of rule by Marcio (1729-47) and his nephew and successor Felipe I (1747-70) was probably the high-water mark of Cantairean independent power; the country gained a justified reputation among its neighbours as even-handed and rational in its dealings, but also as a determined and obstreperous opponent at the negotiating table and in the field of war. While it retained strong ties to Ceresora on the back of long and deep familial and economic ties to the Ceresoran nobility, it held enough strength in its own right to be seen as a legitimate ally. As the stresses of the Reform Wars swept across the Cairan theosphere, Cantaire – and Alba, its capital, in particular – emerged as a lightning-rod for Orthodox thought and practice.

As the Third Reform War swept across northern Messenia, the Cantairean army suffered its most serious blow at the Battle of Lapetrelle in 1769, probably the key military engagement in the war’s later stages. Almost a third of the Cantairean force was killed; among them was Pedro de Teixeira, then 39 years old and the heir to the throne. Felipe, who had invested years of hope and dedication into ensuring Pedro’s ability to rule, was shattered by the loss, emotionally and physically; for the remaining eighteen months of his rule he was a haunted figure, barely able to function in public and increasingly beset by other physical ailments. While his death late in 1770 was described in contemporary reports as from “apoplexy”, there is some strong evidence to suggest that Felipe actually took his own life.

Ceresoran alliance

The loss of the war may have crystallised the Cairan schism, but the Orthodoxy, although severely damaged, retained – and even recovered – much of its vigour over time, with the emergence of a new and self-standing Argan of Cantaire establishing a strong pillar of stability as the new king Paulo struggled to keep the country bound together. Cairan Puritanism became very influential in Cantaire by the end of the 18th century and was almost certainly a major factor in the country’s involvement in the Fourth Reform War (1818-23), the last desperate throw of the dice by the Orthodoxy to preserve what remained of its status against the Reformation. Alba’s failure was punished at the post-war Treaty of Virkið by its loss of the strategically important Marceros region and its Fortress. Savam also began what would be a twenty-year occupation of several small Orthodox statelets in the Estologne region, over which Cantaire had had substantial leverage in the past.

Not even the loss of a war which they had been instrumental in starting was enough to chagrin Cantaire’s Puritans; over the next few years – as sizeable numbers of Reformers were driven across the border into Occois – the old belligerents readied themselves for a war of vengeance against the “betrayers of the faith” within their own country. The Cantairean Purity War of 1826-29, while it bore some similarities to the Transvechian version fought around the same time, was not connected to it; however, it brought about similar results in that it effectively neutered Puritanism as a political and social force in Cantaire for more than a century as the more moderate Concordists assumed dominance.

During the latter half of the 19th century Cantaire was more at liberty to operate an independent foreign policy, although it customarily lined up alongside its sibling Orthodox Cairans in Ceresora. Seldom was this more clearly shown than in the Embute War of 1889-93, in which Alba quickly threw its weight behind the Odannach-led Grand Alliance once Ceresora jumped on board in 1891. Cantaire’s actual involvement in the war was limited, mainly consisting of spoiling actions along its shared border with Savam and in Lake Pusile; but for this limited effort it naturally claimed a share of the spoils. Under the Treaty of Ráth which ended the war, Cantaire recovered the area around Marceros, as well as formally annexing most of the Estologne region (parts of which had already been in a looser association since the end of the Savamese occupation some fifty years earlier); in the process the country’s land area increased by almost a third. The latter decision raised some ire among the Alliance’s members, with the newly expanded Brex-Sarre claiming the region by right of cultural and linguistic parities; and Estologne would remain a bone of contention between the two states for more than half a century.

In the 19th and 20th century Cantaire settled into a role as satellite of the Ceresoran-Odannach alliance. The relationship was not without its stresses, but these were remarkably few in context. Even suggestions of Alba’s involvement in the murder of King Ettore II in 1891 were quickly overtaken as his killer was more clearly seen as motivated by family tragedy during anti-collectivist actions by the Ceresoran army.

The Long War

Much of the period between the late 1920s and the early 1950s in northern Messenia was coloured by the state of cold war between Savam and Odann and by the extent to which it spilled over onto their respective allies. Cantaire found itself swept up into these tensions, both as an associate of Ceresora (Odann’s main ally in the east) and out of its own long-standing grievances against Brex-Sarre. Savamese influence pushed Brex-Sarre to press its long-standing claims on Estologne, as it gave direct access to the Gaste river to Cantaire, an issue which Quesailles viewed as a major strategic risk.

In 1944, after Savamese intervention in northern Ceresora, Cantaire pushed into its west. Although Savamese and Cantairean forces came very close to each other south of Sorreti, full-scale war was averted by the non-aggression agreement concluded between the two states at Feijerpoort on 22 Empery 1944, with Savam paying 150 million aurels as compensation for Cantairean economic interests damaged within the Mincio Demilitarised Zone which Savam occupied. The Cantairean government, though, continued to work with the Legitimists, covertly at first, and steadily more openly. The Battle of Tramo in Metrial 1945 was essentially won by the Cantairean army, which made no attempt to hide its allegiance.

In Dominy 1945 Brexo-Sarrois ire at this meddling – real enough, but tacitly encouraged by Savam – finally prompted a declaration of war on Cantaire. Despite Odann’s monetary and material support, Cantaire lost this fight, after two difficult years of alternative movement and trench warfare. With Alba encircled by Brexian troops, Cantaire sued for peace and was forced to withdraw from Ceresora, as well as transferring Estologne to Brex-Sarre's control.

Post-Long War reconstruction

The return to peace marked a major shift in relations between Savam and Cantaire; Quesailles was eager to extend the buffer of client states which it had been building around itself and extended a policy of “assimilation” (the so-called méthode Couvier) toward Alba. While well short of annexation, the policy aimed at transforming Cantaire into an at least semi-dependent client; Savamese investment sought to link improved prosperity with Savam’s support and tie upper levels of society to Savamese economic interests.

With Ceresoran and Odannach influence destroyed by the civil war and the Gaste War, opposition was minimal; over the 1960s and 1970s the Savamese government sunk hundreds of millions of aurels in Cantaire while Odann and Ceresora repatriated much due to their own internal troubles. Although hampered by punishing food shortages and intermittent famines in the climatic disruption of the period, the policy was a relative success, shifting attitudes toward Savam positively in Cantaire, both within government and more generally.

That said, some hostility toward Savam remained, especially on the more conservative fringe of the Orthodox elite. Many in the establishment still vividly remembered Savamese interference in the 1940s, while the country had also taken in a fair number of Orthodox Savamese, who had been subject to persecution and internment there during the war years and had no reason to presume any goodwill from Quesailles. There were also some wilder suggestions that Savam would seek to annex Cantaire, fostered by some similar loose talk about unification in Brex-Sarre around that time.

By the late 1970s Cantaire was slowly morphing into the next Savamese client state and its politics were becoming increasingly divisive. In the east, Ceresora had stabilised and had started to recover its role as a secondary power; the new Ceresoran state was less hostile to Savam than its predecessor, but nonetheless wished to maintain its independence and re-create a sphere of influence in eastern Messenia. As a former client of the dual monarchy, Cantaire was a logical target for the Ceresorans, who still enjoyed support among Cantairean elites. While Ceresora started its own investment initiative, religious tensions started to increase in Cantaire. To this day the extent of Ceresoran involvement in encouraging anti-Reform sentiment in Cantaire is unclear, but some involvement was clear enough (even as the Federation sought to maintain religious peace within its borders).

The coup

Lieutenant-General Leontios de Sandoval, the original leader of the reactionary movement that established the Sandoval-Montaguia Junta with the 1977 Sandoval coup.

In 1977 the Cantairean parliament narrowly voted in favour of joining the Savamese Customs Union. Support was largely driven by the economic interests of the political elites in the country’s north, where Savamese influence was largest; there was also a smaller cultural component, as the Samezeans in the north were generally more pro-Savam than were the Cantaireans. Conservatives were outraged at this “capitulation” to Quesailles, and reaction was swift; political agitators organised mass protests, and within three months of the vote the parliament was deposed by the army.

The coup’s leader, lieutenant-general Leontios de Sandoval, placed himself at the head of an officially “temporary” junta of army officers and prominent Cantairean aristocrats, with the reluctant acquiescence of king Felipe IV. Among the new administration’s first acts was to renege on the agreement to join the SCU; and it mounted a purge on those out of sympathy to it in positions of authority across Cantaire in a process referred to euphemistically as a limpeza, “the cleaning”. However, Sandoval himself was becoming increasingly unstable – the effect of a previously-undiagnosed brain tumour – and his mental deterioration reached the point at which, in Empery 1978, he was removed from office and replaced by his deputy Paulo de Montaguia. Sandoval’s continuing decline ended in his death early in Petrial 1979.

Junta years

Montaguia’s junta continued to rule the country until 1993 under the direction of Montaguia. It kept to a creed of “Cantaire for the Cantaireans”, completely rejecting any co-operation with Savam and, while allowing some Ceresoran interests in the country, still resolutely pushing back against suggestions of foreign influence. Although Montaguia dialled back some of the fierce Orthodoxism and hyper-patriotism which Sandoval had espoused, the junta remained very extreme and rapidly caused trouble for itself, especially in its dealings with the Samezeans, whom it saw as dangerously pro-Savamese and both politically and culturally suspect.

Return to respublic

The boil of Samezean repression burst open in 1986; the Samezean Insurrection saw a well-armed campaign against the Alba regime, with unofficial support by the Savamese government. As it reached a crescendo in the early 1990s, internal politics troubled the junta; Montaguia and his associates started to lose their grip on power, and trouble emerged in the army.

Sensing a shift in its favour, Quesailles intervened; in Metrial 1992 seven divisions of the Imperial Army crossed the Cantairean border – nominally to protect the welfare of the Samezean community – while the Imperial Airforce conducted a widespread bombing campaign. The move triggered a diplomatic crisis with Ceresora, which feared a Savamese takeover and the loss of its economic interests in Cantaire. Tensions between Quesailles and Cavino rose, but eventually the two powers agreed to find a diplomatic solution; while the Savamese army occupied large swathes of northern Cantaire, a series of negotiations took place in the Ceresoran city of Castras. Meanwhile, in Alba the junta unraveled, and a group of junior officers led by colonel Mauricio de Soutomaior deposed Montaguia and signaled that they were willing to support a negotiated agreement and a return to a more respublican rule.

As the insurrection reached a crescendo in the early 1990s, internal politics troubled the junta; Montaguia and his associates started to lose their grip on power, and trouble emerged in the army. Sensing a shift in its favour, Quesailles acted; in Metrial 1992 seven divisions of the Imperial Army crossed the Cantairean border, nominally to protect the welfare of the Samezean community, while the Imperial Airforce conducted a widespread bombing campaign; this constituted the so-called Alban Intervention. The move triggered a diplomatic crisis with Ceresora, which feared a Savamese takeover and the loss of its economic interests in Cantaire. Tensions between Quesailles and Cavino rose, but eventually the two powers agreed to find a diplomatic solution and, while the Savamese army occupied large swathes of northern Cantaire, a series of negotiations took place in Castras, Ceresora. Meanwhile, in Alba the junta unraveled, and a group of junior officers led by colonel Mauricio de Soutomaior deposed Montaguia and signaled that they were willing to support a negotiated agreement and a return to a more respublican rule.

Signed on 25 Petrial 1993, the Castras Agreement established a settlement that holds to this day. Savam and Ceresora agreed on the hybrid status of Cantaire within the Savamese Customs Union, while the Cantairean government, led at that point by Soutomaior, agreed to return power to the parliament and to organise free elections within the year, as well as establishing a suite of legal protections for the Samezean minority. The agreement also provided for the abdication of the ailing Felipe IV, to be replaced as king by his nephew Martín, who was largely seen as a progressive leader. Soutomaior, who resigned his commission and would become a prominent politician in the country, kept his part of the bargain; the first elections were organised in Dominy 1993, while Martín ascended to the throne as Martín II on 6 Sation.

The return to normality in Cantaire has, perhaps unsurprisingly, seen a marked improvement in relations with Ceresora and Brex-Sarre, and perhaps a recognition of its own past failings inspired the Alba government into a quite firm support for the throne in Tisana during the civil war there between 2006 and 2009, with prince Maximiliano seeking to influence activity there from the Tisanese embassy in Alba.

Government

Foreign policy

Cantaire is at present, at least nominally, an ally and loose client state of Savam, a state of affairs strongly encouraged by the Savamese for at least the last sixty years. However, the alliance is perhaps the most distant of any within the Savamese sphere of influence, with the Castras Agreement constraining Quesailles in fair measure and providing for a greater role as ally and patron for Ceresora. More recent governments in Alba have deliberately tried to balance these two conflicting influences.

Local government

The internal organisation of Cantaire is managed through 25 subdivisions known as departments. These were, for the most part, based on historic noble fiefs, but were subject to an extensive re-organisation in 1992. Alba is recognised as a department in its own right; the urban areas of Âncora, Espinheiro, Marceros and Tulles de Sur have some limited separate rights but are not detached from the departments which carry those cities’ names.

Language

The principal language of the country is Cantairean, a Sabamic language which diverged from later forms of Old Sabamic probably during the sixth century CE. Samezeau, which did not shift so strongly, is also spoken in the north of the country closer to the border with Savam and has official status in three of the country’s departments.