Princess Margaret Islands
The Princess Margaret Islands (Zepnish Fürstin-Margarethe-Inseln), also known as the Great Western Islands (Dael Oileáin Mór an Iarthair), are a chain of islands in the Prothenian Ocean off the south-eastern coast of Serania Major, extending for some 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometres) in a broadly north-east to south-west orientation between latitudes 45° and 10° south.
History
Discovery and early settlement
The islands were discovered and first explored by Lothar Ebenstein, a Sergonish sea-captain, during his voyage through the southern Prothenian Ocean in 1660; the group was named in honour of Margarethe von Eisenfurt (Margaret in Ellish), the daughter of the late Zepnish Emperor Pherecydes and one of the Ebenstein expedition’s most prominent backers.
Further explorations by Ebenstein and others confirmed the extent of the chain and its proximity to the Seranian mainland; and the islands’ favourable climate saw them become developed by settlers as part of a plantation economy for the cultivation of cash crops like coffee, indigo and sugar cane. This development also gave rise to one of the less savoury aspects of the Seranian colonial experience; the various Seranian Transportation Acts from 1863 allowed a labour force to be gathered from the felons of imperial prisons, beginning a long tradition of penal servitude in Zepnish Serania. However, the group became a focus of interest by other Messenian states active in the region, with Odann and Savam setting up small footholds from the middle 1670s, while parts of the group became convenient hideaways for pirate raiders who cheerfully owed no allegiances to anyone.
Ottmar, the Palthic emperor, sought to consolidate his authority – both against the intrusions and over the restive settlement heads and their sponsors in the metropole – by the creation of the Admiralty of the Far West as a governing body in 1687, based at Helgashafen on the northern coast of Keil. Peter von Leiditz – who would in later life become the first king of an independent Alcasia – served as its first admiral.
While this proved beneficial, it still outraged the local settler chiefs, who resented their new subordination and the loss of their autonomy, as well as their patrons. Under some strong pressure from the court’s colonial lobby, Erwin von Eisenfurt as imperial regent dissolved the Admiralty in the spring of 1702, but the beginning of the War of the Regents later that year made the islands something of an afterthought in Palthia proper and encouraged foreign intervention, with Savamese and Odannach naval vessels making pointed excursions into the region and beleaguered Palthian settlements being seized by both intruders.
The new Zepnish order
The Treaty of Spatzberg, signed in 1708, supposedly restored the old order – or at least that part of it sanctioned by the so-called “Baldwinian system” – but in practice it simply reasserted the old patchwork pattern, with some areas staying under the imperial remit, and others answering to territories and rulers whose allegiance to the new Zepnish Emperor was sometimes only notional. It would not be until as late as 1743, as the Zepnish Reformation, gathered pace that the Margarets were taken fully back in hand by the imperial centre at Steintor.
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The islands and their surrounding waters were probably the most important side theatre during the South Lestrian War in 1785–87, with Odann’s superior fleet giving them the edge in these remote waters, although the political demarcation lines between the Sacred Kingdom and the Zepnish Realm saw only minor changes as a result of the war.
Odann’s presence in the islands was significantly reduced after its loss in the Gaste War; in the subsequent Treaty of Ostari it ceded the small island of Leathshlí (Zepnish Lieselei), between Inisholmer and Hofzelig, to Zeppengeran, as well as several smaller islands and insular enclaves, leaving only the outpost of Tümmlershafen (Ceann Mhuc Mhara in Dael) on the south coast of Hofzelig. Savam also took possession of the island of Áthas (known as Île Joyeuse to the Savamese) to the south of Grande Terre.
Political status
The greater part of the chain is made up of Zepnish possessions, with the islands of Bastei, Überwind, Unterwind, Feuerkelch, Keil, Hofzelig and Lieselei extending as a chain in a broadly north-east to south-west alignment for some 2,600 kilometres (1,615 miles). The territory is governed as a single possession, with a capital and administrative centre at Helgashafen. Zeppengeran also controls roughly a quarter of the island of Beschützerinsel to the north-west.
The remainder of that island is held by Savam, which calls it Grande Terre; it and Miracle Island (Île des Miracles) to the north form the vice-principality of the Isles.1 Odann’s position in the islands was reduced by the Treaty of Ostari in 1958, and is now confined to the island of Inisholmer at the south-eastern end of the chain and a small enclave, Tümmlershafen (Ceann Mhuc Mhara) on Hofzelig.
Present day
Miracle Island, located favourably for space launches at roughly 12° south latitude, is the location of a near-Arden orbital launching facility and space centre established by the Savamese government as part of the Savamese-Zepnish Aerospace Research Organisation (SZARO).
Notes
- ↑ <Miracle Island is not, strictly speaking, part of the Princess Margaret group, but is usually included as a matter of convenience.