1757 Skerries goodwill cruise
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This article relates to a current event. Information may quickly become out of date as the event progresses. |
 A map of the Skerry Isles in Keltia; 1757 AN, with Dromosker Island marked as empty green. | |
| Native name |
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|---|---|
| Date | 2–16.IX.1757 AN (announced 26.VIII.1757 AN) |
| Location | Skerry Isles, Keltia |
| Type | Naval goodwill cruise |
| Cause | Çakari annexation of Dromosker Island |
| Organised by |
 Federal Navy of Nouvelle Alexandrie |
| Participants |
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| Outcome | New Alexandrian non-recognition of the annexation reaffirmed; no trade sanctions imposed |
The 1757 Skerries goodwill cruise (Alexandrian: Croisière de bonne volonté des Skerries de 1757; Martino: Crucero de buena voluntad de las Skerries de 1757) was a naval deployment by the Federal Navy of Nouvelle Alexandrie through the Skerry Isles in IX.1757 AN, undertaken in response to Çakaristan's annexation of Dromosker Island the previous month. The squadron called at the New Alexandrian Region of New Luthoria and at two nearby Constancian islands, and its passage was timed to a separate Constancian military exercise in the same waters. The Federation presented the cruise as a routine showing of the flag and declined to connect it to the annexation, although its itinerary passed around the island Çakaristan had seized and renamed. It was the Federation's principal response to the seizure, chosen in place of the trade sanctions that had been pressed in the Cortes.
Background
On 14.VII.1757 AN Çakaristan annexed Dromosker Island in the Wilhelm Isles, the archipelago adjacent to the New Alexandrian Region of New Luthoria in the Skerry Isles, deporting Prince Eru IV and the island's council, renaming the territory Xunpadshahan Island, and absorbing it as a direct province. The seizure set aside the Pact of Schaarlecht, a treaty Çakaristan had signed with the Imperial Federation three weeks earlier that had guaranteed the island's self-rule. The episode was widely reported for the manner of the takeover, in which the lock of the island's council building was shot open beneath a low pass by Çakari fighter aircraft.
The Department of State condemned the annexation on 18.VII and refused to recognize it, the renaming, or any act arising from it. Secretary of State Jean-Michel Durand rested the position in part on the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation of 1717 AN, whose provisions bind the two states to respect each other's sovereignty and to settle disputes by peaceful means. In the chamber, deputies pressed for trade sanctions against Çakaristan and against named Çakari officials.
The government was reluctant to use trade measures. The completed Strait Tunnel beneath the Jaris Strait, built by Parap Construction and Engineering, had made the Federation Çakaristan's principal partner for major infrastructure, and the follow-on engineering work the project opened was held to be worth more than a sanctions dispute would cost. Officials at the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry argued against any measure that would drive that work to a competitor. The cruise was the alternative the government settled on, a response that fell on the disposition of warships rather than on commerce.
Announcement
The Federation announced the cruise on 26.VIII.1757 AN. The Department of Defense described it as a goodwill visit of long standing in the Federal Navy's calendar and released an itinerary of friendly port calls. On the same day, the Department of State repeated that the Federation did not accept the annexation and added that the Navy's movements were a matter for the Navy. The two departments issued their statements about an hour apart and in substantially the same terms.
Cruise
A squadron of the Federal Navy, built around its principal surface units, sailed on 2.IX.1757 AN and conducted the cruise over the following two weeks. The published itinerary listed a port call at New Luthoria, the New Alexandrian Region in the Skerry Isles, and visits to two nearby Constancian islands. Plotted on a chart, the route ran along three sides of Çakari-held Dromosker, renamed Xunpadshahan, and through the stretch of the Wilhelm Isles the annexation had brought into dispute. The Department of Defense did not present the route in those terms and characterized any such reading as the observer's own.
Constancian exercise
Constancia announced a short-notice exercise to test the readiness of its eastern island garrisons, conducted in the same period and the same waters. Among the positions exercised was the garrison at Augustinium, alongside a retirement community on an exposed island, held and secured by a single company of Imperial Marines (and such other military retirees with the misfortune to be present), a posting whose defense is constrained by the small force stationed there. Run alongside the New Alexandrian squadron's tour of the surrounding islands, the exercise placed allied warships in the area from two directions at once. Whether the waters around Çakari-held Dromosker were being patrolled or merely transited was left, in the government's framing, to the observer. Constancia described the drill as a scheduled test of its own defenses and the New Alexandrian visit as a courtesy between partners, and did not address the timing of the two.
Reactions
Domestic
International
Assessment
Aftermath
See also
- 1757 Çakari intervention on Dromosker Island
- Dromosker Island
- Treaty between Çakaristan and Nouvelle Alexandrie
- New Luthoria
- Federal Navy of Nouvelle Alexandrie
