Basque (Celtic Rules)

The Reformation

After Celtic dominance swept the whole of Europe, following the respective collapse of Roman and Hunnic empires, the local Celtic warlords that met together to govern the area known as the Basque principality were met with fierce resistence from the local Basques. Most fled to the neighbouring regions of Iberia and Catalonia to deal with the remaining Roman forces that opposed them. One remained - a minor nobleman by the name of Tancrada Meriodoxa - who proclaimed himself overlord over what was left of the Basque principality - most of which was now in the hands of the Basque rebels.

War with the Basques

Tancrada, after a botched up attempt to secure the alliegance of the neighbouring Celtic kingdoms in the peninsula - summoned together his forces at his hastily constructed capital at Castelebro in the East of his principality. His determination to carry through his Celtic control of the peninsula was aided by a band of Roman veteranii under the command of Marshall Caius Nasica and an army of unruly Celtiberians dispersed from their homeland in the border areas between Iberia and Aragon. These armies enabled Tancrada to bring the Basque Confederacy to battle on favourable terms - and defeated them so soundly that they immediately withdrew from the eastern hinterland of the principality and consolidated around their capital, Asturica. Another army was fielded to confront Tancrada at Los Navarris but this was defeated again - this time to an extent that it couldn't be revived. Unwilling to sue for peace, the Basque Confederacy placed itself under a dictatorship - and ordered for a conscription of all native Basques above the age of 16

Intervention of the Berbers and War with Carthago-Tunes Nova

Obviously, a dictatorship within a population as warlike as the Basques was bound for disaster; even in the wake of Celtic invasion the Basques were unwilling to renounce their freedoms - instead of doing so they threw out the dictator and opened up negotiations with the Berbers on the North African coast.