You make some comments below which bare some comment.
You claim that you need only the debt of honor to go to war to prevent your
friend from being torn to pieces. You seem to forget that the New Empire
were friends of mine. When we sent troops to defend our friends and the
friends of our friends (the Lords of the Crown), it was you who was crying
fowl.
In that case we deferred to your and other's requests and agreed to a peace
treaty which had very little benifit for us except a sense that the
situation had been put right. As soon as our forces withdrew from the area
you have chosen to discard any sense of justice which we were able to gain
from the Accord. You say that you need no treaty to do the honorable
thing. You also claim that we have no interest in the region. But I say
that in the absense of the Yellowleaf Accord Eagle still has a claim to the
former New Empire territories.
You should also remember that when PLATO hoards invaded our territory it
was the LotC who came to our aid. If the defense of your friends is enough
for you to enter the war, why is the defense of our friends, invaded on
three fronts, not sufficient for us to enter the war on their behalf? And
isn't this the very scenario that the Yellowleaf Accord was designed to avoid?
Without some attempt at respect for the honor required by each of us we
simply return to the situation which existed prior to the Yellowleaf
Accord. With the exception that the Eagle forces have withdrawn as
required by the treaty. This is why we feel that we have been tricked. We
made a great sacrifice in forgoing our right to vengence for the
obliteration of our friends. We have been repayed by disreguard for our
honor at best and betrayal at worste.
I will state once again. I am not interested in labeling any side good or
bad. I am not making any threats of retaliation. I simply wish to state
my understanding clarify the situation so that the Eagle Alliance can
re-evaluate our goals and policies with a full understanding of the
situation and parties involved.
Mike Brand
Jackal Alliance
At 03:13 AM 5/7/98 -0500, Bruce Glassco wrote:
> I realize that this list has been inundated with spin on the Yellowleaf
>situation recently. This will be the first and last official IC public
>posting on the topic of our involvement in the Harn/Lords dispute. We will
>answer any further questions or comments via the Grand Council of
>Ambassadors.
> To those trying to figure us out, I apologize for waiting so long to
>respond to Mike's and Eric's questions. Real life in the form of stacks of
>end-of-term papers to grade has intervened, and what time I do have for
>Olympia has been dedicated to general-type activities.
> Now then...
>
>In response to the Jackals and all others:
>From the Illustrated Man
>
> I've recently been reading some of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom novels.
>Now there's a world where calling a man a warmonger is no insult, and even
>one's enemies are respected when they hold fast to their friends.
> Now back to Provinia, where the opposite seems to be true.
>
> What we have here seems to be a set of differing priorities. Jheremai
>went to bat for us when we sorely needed aid...the Eagles know that better
>than most. But now, evidently, Mr. Brand expects us to stand idly by and
>make baskets while our friend is cut to pieces by an invading horde, merely
>because a treaty that we signed does not give us an explicit justification
>for helping him. If that's the way he feels about friendship, then all we
>can say is, we're glad Mr. Brand is not OUR friend. :)
> Perhaps our friend is less than perfect. When half the world looked like
>it was coming to invade us, we didn't send out a quiz to ascertain whether
>everyone who offered us aid had attained a Seehawk-like level of moral
>purity. We accepted aid when it was offered, and we considered a debt to
>be a debt. Whatever Jheremai or his confederates may have done since then
>has done nothing whatsoever to cancel that debt.
> If the Lords were paragons of moral purity then we'd understand the world
>expressing outrage at our actions. But clearly this is not so. Both sides
>have their flaws.
> It is true that Jheremai did not specifically come begging to us for aid
>when he was attacked. Back when we were attacked, we did not go begging
>for aid either, but he offered it, just the same. We are a proud alliance,
>just as Harn is a proud alliance. After Harn was invaded, we wrote and
>offered assistance, and he accepted it with gratitude. That's good enough
>for us.
> So for purposes of clarification, while it is true that Jheremai did not
>ask for our help, the statement
>>the IC declaired war in support of the Harn Alliance without their
>>knowledge or consent.
>is NOT true. We had both. If that makes us a "super-alliance," then so be
>it.
>
> We'd like to point out that it is only outsiders to this war -- mostly
>members of the Eagle Alliance -- who have been obsessed with pointing
>fingers and finding out who are the "good guys" and the "bad guys." The
>major participants on both sides have been acting on their senses of honor
>rather than on legalism, and we applaud that. In the eyes of the Inner
>Circle, all participants have acted properly at every step of their
>engagement:
>
>The Horselords felt insulted, so they did something about it. They rode
>their horses around a bit, scuffed up a bit of turf, and went home.
>
>The Lords of the Crown didn't like it, and now they are doing something
>about that. They didn't go whining to the Times and the GCA about how
>their sovereignty was invaded. Instead they expressed their displeasure in
>a time-honored fashion: the Overwhelming Surprise Attack. And by the way,
>allow us to take the time here to commend them on a well-thought-out and
>executed campaign to date.
>
>Neither did the Harn Alliance go whining around at this point. They dug in
>to defend themselves.
>
>And now the Inner Circle is going to get involved. Why? Because one of
>the targets of the Lord's reaction is Jheremai the Scarlet, to whom we
>feel we owe a debt.
>
> The Inner Circle does not need a treaty to keep peace with our neighbors
>if our neighbors behave themselves. Likewise, when it comes to the
>repayment of a debt of honor, we will not let a treaty stand in our way.
>But it seems that, for Mr. Brand, the repayment of a debt of honor is not a
>good enough excuse to go to war. He keeps waving around a piece of paper,
>and hints vaguely at retribution against those who break it. He writes:
>
>>I am not aware of any violation of the Yellowleaf Accord made by the LotC.
>>I would be interested in learning of one if it has occurred. But I am only
>>interested in violations of what was written and agreed to, not speculation
>>on the "spirit" of the accord.
>
>Very well. If you insist on searching through this conflict to find "good
>guys" and "bad guys," and you believe that the bad guys are the ones who
>first broke the treaty, then read on.
>
>The Treaty was agreed to by the Lords on February 8. The revelant article is
>
>12) The remaining New Empire provinces (after item 11) will be
>divided between Inner Circle and Lords of the Crown. Inner Circle
>will receive 20% and Lords of the Crown 80%. The division is as
>detailed below:
>Inner Circle will control
>>>cx77<<,
>cz77, da77, db77, dc78, dd78, df78, dg78
>>>and all points EAST<<
>within former New Empire land.
>Lords of the Crown will control all provinces WEST.
>
>(Emphasis added.)
>
>On turn 52, run on February 10, at the same time the Treaty was being
>published in the Times, the following was going on:
>
>Desert [cx78], desert, in Provinia, civ-1
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 4: Lonely Cavelier [7844], with one riding horse, arrived from the west.
> 5: Lonely Cavelier [7844], with one riding horse, entered City [s06].
>27: Lonely Cavelier [7844], with one riding horse, ten soldiers, arrived
>27: from City [s06].
>28: Garrison [1096], garrison, on guard, with ten soldiers now guards
>28: Desert [cx78].
>29: Lonely Cavelier [7844], with one riding horse, entered City [s06].
>
>Province controlled by High Palace [1325], castle, in The Moonlands [cz72]
>Ruled by Sir Codric [3910], duke
>
>Routes leaving Desert:
> North, plain, to Land's End [cw78], 7 days
> East, to Forest [cx79], 8 days
> South, swamp, to Land's End [cz78], 14 days
> West, forest, to The Moonlands [cx77], 8 days
>
>On turn 53, Lonely Cavelier (1) evidently went east to garrison cx79 as
>well, since that too was loyal to the Moonlands when we showed up to
>garrison it later.
>
> So there you have it, Mike: clear evidence that the Lords broke the
>treaty, both letter and spirit, on both the turn it was signed and the turn
>after. Perhaps you will now condemn them with the same fervour that you've
>been condemning us?
> We didn't feel that this violation was cause enough for war. For us our
>debt of honor was enough and more than enough. But if those with
>legalistic minds insist, we will add this clear violation of the treaty to
>our list of causus belli.
>
> This does NOT mean we feel that, just because their side of the treaty was
>broken, we're justified in breaking our side as well. We intend to stick
>by what we agreed to. This is not a war about take the Lords' lands, and
>we'll state right now that we aren't doing this to expand our territory.
>We respect their borders...we just don't want Codric's nobles to be inside
>them any more, or anywhere else either, for that matter!
> If, when all the bodies have been buried and/or the peace treaties have
>been signed, the fortunes of war leave us in possession of lands assigned
>to the Lords in the treaty, we will try to find someone to pass them on to.
> If anyone answers our call for mercenaries, perhaps we'll give the land to
>them as payment. Perhaps we'll let those surviving Lords who agree to
>leave us alone keep some territory as a strict DMZ. Perhaps we'll turn the
>entire area unto a giant safe zone for newbies. Perhaps we'll turn over
>their castles to the next newbies to show up in Yellowleaf. But we won't
>try to add their lands to our empire, unless further escalation of the war
>causes us to change our current goals.
> We believe that this policy is in line with our reading of the Yellowleaf
>Accord. We do not find anything in the Accord that says, either explicitly
>or implicitly "All signatories agree to be always at peace with all other
>signatories, no matter what they do, for ever and ever world without end
>amen." If the Accord had contained anything like that, we never would have
>signed it, and we doubt if anyone else would have either.
>
> One more point: both the Jackals and Cendage have said, in effect, that
>they feel we tricked them into leaving during our previous confrontation.
>We are quite surprised at this accusation. They made their grievances in
>that confrontation quite clear at the time, we felt. Their first was a
>sense of betrayal related to our brief membership in their organization,
>and they professed themselves satisfied on this account before they left.
>Their second was a sense of obligation to their member state the New
>Empire, which is not involved with this dispute at all. At no time did
>they link themselves or their interests with the Lords of the Crown in any
>way. Why do they now feel that an assault against the Lords is evidence of
>duplicity against them? We're puzzled.
>
>The Illustrated Man
>
>(1) As an alumnus of the University of Virginia whose mascot is the fabled
>horseman of long ago, I suggest that Sir Codric or his ally look up the
>spelling of the word "cavalier." The spelling is the same in French,
>n'est-ce pas?
>
>