Gæseyjar
The Gæseyjar are a group of islands in the XX Sea off the west coast of Serania Major, and are currently possessions of Siurskeyti, administered as part of Siursk Serania. Claimed by Siurskeyti in 1744, they have been held against the counterclaims of both Agamar and Terophan into the present day. The chief settlement is located at Pálmarfell, in the sheltered bay of the same name on the south coast of Mudurey, the main island of the group.
Name
The name Gæseyjar translates into Ellish as “Geese Islands”, and refers to the large flocks of Felician geese (Branta feliciensis) which pass through the islands en route to wintering grounds in the south of Serania Major. The resemblance perceived by some of the shape of Mudurey to a goose in flight is purely coincidental.
Geography and climate
The two main islands of the group are Mudurey, the larger of the pair, and Silvey, which lies roughly to the north-east. Twelve smaller islands and islets make up the remainder of the group. The islands’ climate is broadly subtropical, with mild or warm summers and erratic, occasionally heavy rainfall, and cooler winters with more uniform rains. The islands are prone to storms and occasional cayvores.
History
Early history
The area around the islands was intermittently explored by Agamari mariners from the 1630s, and was officially assigned to Agamari rule as part of the West Wind Treaty in 1656. Actual control of the islands, however, remained essentially theoretical, and their chief significance for many years was as a seasonal base and bad-weather shelter for fishing vessels. With the break-up of the Neritsovid Empire in the early 18th century, claims over the islands began to be raised by the emerging Terophan, but no attempt to contest possession was made by the new rulership in Axopol.
Capture and settlement by Siurskeyti
The islands came into Siursk hands in Ediface 1744, when small ships sent out from the recently-established settlement at Óhætthöfn, in the south-west of the Siursk mainland territories, made landfall near what is now Hálsinn, the second-largest town on the islands. Unaware of the previous Terophane claim on the islands, the Siursk mariners encountered a small group of Terophane fishermen who were making use of the island as a temporary base of operations, and forced them off in some disarray.
The prevalence of whales in the waters of the southern Sunnar Ocean led to the Gæseyjar, and Pálmarfell in particular, becoming a focal point of the whaling industry. However, whaling as a practice became heavily frowned upon, largely due to pressure from the Arlatur communion in the Siursk metropole, and had become moribund as early as 1800 before dying out completely in the next decade. The last rendering facility on the islands closed in 1816, although their past prosperity has left a number of prominent civic buildings surviving from that period.
The Gæseyjar remained a bone of contention between Siurskeyti, Agamar and Terophan for some time; the various Seranian Treaties agreed over the period from 1770 to 1790 between various Messenian powers did not allow for the recognition of Joriscian claims, and Joriscian law made (and to a fair degree still makes) little provision for the rights of non-Vesnites (usually “ignorants” in Vaestic parlance). While the 1802 Agreement at Mudry provided for a cessation of hostilities between Siurskeyti and Terophan in the region – and an at-least nominal recognition of Siursk sovereignty over the Gæseyjar – Agamar continued to lay claim to the islands (known in Agar as the “Storm Islands” or Myrskysaaret), which lay at their closest just over 250 kilometres (157 miles) from Agamari possessions in Järvenranta, on the western Serania Major coast.
The Gæseyjar War
While Agamar’s claim was not much more than an occasional irritant for much of the 1800s, the issue became more prominent from mid-century and the assumption of an imperial title by Radomir II in 1853. An increased search for influence and prestige within the Agamari body politic prompted Sakari to look more closely at the environs of its various scattered Seranian possessions; and the Myrskysaaret would feature prominently on that list.
While Agamar engaged in a certain degree of sabre-rattling and harassment of Siursk ships, the first actual attempt by the Agamari to seize the islands would not come until 20 Nollonger 1857, when the naval brigantine Joutsen entered the harbour at Pálmarfell. Captain Pentti Kärkkäinen and eight members of his crew entered the town hall and removed the mayor and his small staff at gunpoint, while another detachment seized control of the offices of the island’s only newspaper. In the afternoon of 20 Nollonger Kärkkäinen issued a public proclamation that the islands had been claimed in the name of the emperor Tero and the Agamari Realm.
Although reports of the seizure reached the Seranian mainland at Óhætthöfn fairly quickly, the Siursk navy had only one ship of its own, the sloop Óttalaus, which was outgunned by the Agamari vessel in its attempt to relieve the islands and damaged so badly that it had to be broken up on its return to harbour. A petition for help was made to Terophan’s small naval base at ZZ, on the south-eastern coast of Serania Minor, but was refused; the Terophites insisted that active aid to Siursk forces was outside the scope of the Mudry accord, and the base’s commander is thought to have considered that he would not receive official sanction for any commitment of resources against fellow Vesnites.
Agamar bolstered its presence on the islands quickly after the initial capture, and although relatively few settlers made the short journey from Järvenranta, almost half of the resident Siursk either left voluntarily or were expelled from the islands, and were forced to return to the mainland. Reports of the Agamari capture took some six months to make their way by sea back to Ostari – although somewhat less to reach Axopol, where they were met with caution by the Terophite rulership. Emperor Zdravoslav, although concerned by the Agamari advance, shared the general Vesnite disdain for those outside the faith; he was in any event in a poor position to act, being hemmed in by domestic issues and by a restive Azophin on his northern frontier. While protests were made to the Agamari court at Sakari, Zdravoslav granted permission for any logistic support which the Siursk might request, but otherwise elected to stand on the sidelines of the dispute.
The first reports of the seizure of the Gæseyjar reached Ostari in mid-Fabricad 1858. The Siursk response was commendably swift, with the ship of the line Endurfæðing under captain Pól Síður and two smaller support ships, the Vogun and the Dáð, being dispatched towards the islands late in the same month. Although hampered by bad weather crossing the Sunnar, they reached the waters around the Gæseyjar in mid-Sation, approaching the islands from the south-west.
As the Dáð landed a contingent of soldiers on the west coast of Mudurey, the Endurfæðing and the Vogun continued towards the harbour at Pálmarfell, drawing the Joutsen out to meet them as alarms were raised in the island capital. The Agamari ship made a creditable attempt at defence, with its cannon causing some moderate damage to the Vogun, but was crippled by return fire from the Endurfæðing and forced away towards the Seranian mainland. With the army detachment entering Pálmarfell from the north, the remaining Agamari forces on Mudurey were surrounded and mopped up in relatively short order; the Siursk flag was raised above the town hall at just after 5:00 PM local solar time on 19 Sation 1858. With the help of Terophite mediation, an agreement was reached between captain Síður and local Agamari leadership on 25 Sation, in which the Agamari agreed to remove their remaining forces and civilian population, and provide assistance in restoring any property and damage thereto made during the occupation period.
Later history
Although Siurskeyti has maintained a small naval presence almost continuously since the Gæseyjar War – and has been backed up to some degree by Terophan for much of this time – the Agamari claim to the islands (as well as to the nearby Zemayan-held island of Vienuma) persisted throughout the early 20th century, and Sakari definitively yielded its position only as late as 1959, as part of wider negotiations at the Congress of Kethpor.
The Siursk government developed plans to upgrade and expand its facilities on Mudurey in 1973, and construction on this project was carried out over a two-year period between 1974 and 1976. The islands are now the main base for the Siursk navy’s Eastern Sunnar Command, and have additionally played host to a ground station for the Heimsmöskva, Siurskeyti’s geopositional satellite network, since its entering service in 2004.