Kingdom of Skogsmark

Flag of the Skogsmarkian Reich

## Skogsmarkische Reich

### Motto

"Seite an Seite, Kameraden, Gott hat uns nicht rot oder weiß gestrichen.""Side by side, comrades, God did not paint us red nor white."

### Currency

Skogsmarkian Reichsmark

The **Kingdom of Skogsmark**,(Skogsmarkische Reich, lit: Skogsmarkian Kingdom) is a country in west Koltanets and east Oestila. With over 90 million inhabitants, it is the second-most populous nation in Koltanets, after Castamarina and shares direct land borders with Jermoncro, Novorussiya and Castamarina as well as a maritime border with Entiao. Skogsmark's capital and largest city is Kranvdert.

The first proto-Skogsmarkian states were founded by Nordic settlers, whose vessels crashed whilst sailing through the strait south of geographical Skogsmark. The region grew rich and prosperous, thanks to the large-scale mining of gold in the mountains, which incentivised a Nordic prince to declare his seat in the juvenile Skogsmark, his landing spot later becoming Kranvdert, or translated, Crowns' Landing.

Skogsmark would grow as a multi-cultural centre of blacksmithing industry for the next millennia but the large mix of various cultures would always be a hindrance, social unrest being the greatest threat until during the High Middle Ages, a large Skogsmarkian civil war took place, wherein the entire Kingdom fell apart into various warring groups. A peace was forged eventually during the Werner Reconquest, and the Werner family remains as the royal bloodline to this day.

In the modern-day, Skogsmark is considered one of the most economically powerful nations in Koltanets, thanks to its booming chemical industry. The main exports of Skogsmark; oil, high-grade industrial components and chemicals, make Skogsmark a leading nation in the hard sciences, particularly chemistry. It is also considered one of the most highly-developed nations, with the government offering various social securities, universal healthcare and subsidised education programs. It has a strong mandate in the Koltanets Strategic Partnership and is part of the TOAA.

## Etymology

The name *Skogsmark* is believed to have been derived from a lost Nordic language, a word which translated to "deep forest", referring to the vast woodlands of Skogsmark when it was first settled. Though centuries of infighting lead to the desertification of Skogsmark, the nation kept its original name as a symbolic reverence towards the bygone era of prosperity and peace during the first settlement era.

### Fall Falke

In early 3918, Skogsmark's neighbour of Kirtekistan, itself an authoritarian communist nation, collapsed due to infighting within its populace and military, mostly fuelled by overt military spending, corruption and paranoia during the ongoing Red Purge. Though initially an internal issue, radical elements of the Kirtekistan Armed Forces began mild attacks on Skogsmarkian eastern provinces, threatening one of the Kingdom's main supplies of high quality oil. In response to this, Skogsmark pulled out of reserve roughly 300,000 personnel and declared a peacekeeping operation against Kirtekistan, under an operation known as "Fall Falke". Internally, it was viewed as a convenient live-fire training exercise to train the expanding Skogsmarkian army, with frequent rotations so that as much personnel as possible would see active service.

As the Kirtekistan army itself could not offer much organised resistance, the Kingdom of Skogsmark was able to defeat the technologically superior opposing force with few losses. Capturing of Kirtekistan equipment would become so frequent that there would be official designations for Kirtekistani equipment in Skogsmarkian service, with many captured technologies being employed later by Skogsmark, most obvious in the development of the Sturmgewehr 19.

However, most of the fighting would take place after the Skogsmarkian army defeated Kirtekistan, having to fight against a asymmetric counter-insurgency war against radical communist terrorists. The fighting during this final phase of the war (3919 - 3920) would be less bloody in terms of total lives lost but more brutal in the systematic executions of entire villages by Kirtekistan and mass starvation caused by the large Skogsmarkian army foraging supplies off of the local populace. Eventually, the last of the insurgents would be wiped out and a new nation, Novorussiya, established