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Tarrantry is an Atlantic island - as fictional as the country itself, of course. It is located on the corner of the European continental shelf, west of Brittany and south of Ireland. (Thus, in geographical terms it is really a third British Isle.) In area it is slightly smaller than Ireland, though with a larger population on the order of 8-10 million people by 1939. The ancient population was Celtic, and a Celtic language related to Breton is still spoken in remote areas. The predominant ancient tribe was the Terentri, hence the Latin name Insula Terentria. Tarrantry's recorded history begins with a Roman commander who attempted to conquer it, only to be driven off by a native queen. In response, the Emperor Vaspasian - who had previous experience dealing with a troublesome Celtic queen, Boudicca - sent a more capable officer, P. Cornelius Longinus, apparently with instructions to avoid creating another mess. We have only a sketchy account, in Suetonius, of Longinus' campaign, but at the end of it a peace was made and Queen Trevanna was recognized as a 'friend of the Roman People.' Suetonius insinuates that Longinus and Queen Trevanna ended up as very good friends indeed. :-) By tradition their amicable union of Roman and Celt is regarded as the beginning of the Terentrian nation, and their names are of course commemorated by the battleships Trevanne and Longine. A Roman fort was built on a sound near the eastern tip of the island; this fort, Colonia Longina, eventually became the city of Colnille.
By the Middle Ages, French culture had become predominant. Medieval Tarrantry was a duchy of France, semi-independent in practice as were other French duchies. Colnille, on the coastal trade route between southern and northern Europe, became a wealthy trading town, and the basis of ducal power. With the aid of its ships the Dukes of Tarrantry (called the House of Toulouse, though the name actually comes from Tolosa in Spain) were well positioned to play off England and France in order to maintain their de facto independence; as late as the reign of Louis XIV they called on English support to preserve their medieval liberties against the French crown. Nevertheless, by the 18th century Tarrantry was a loyal province of France, and Terentrian ships fought alongside the French royal fleet - in 1780 a Terentrian squadron defeated an English one in the Battle of Richemont.
The great turn in Terentrian history came with the French Revolution. Initially the liberal Duke Jean IV favored the revolution and went so far as to renounce his title and be elected to the Convention as 'Citoyen Toulouse.' But the arrest of the king and the rise of the Jacobins turned Terentrian opinion against the revolutionaries, and a provincial convention restored ex-Duke Jean to his ducal title. Tarrantry broke away from the Revolutionary government, and though still nominally a royalist province of France, it fought alongside Britain in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Subsequently the Congress of Vienna recognized Tarrantry as an independent country and elevated the House of Toulouse to royal rank.
Throughout the 19th century, fear of re-annexation by France was the dominant factor in Tarrantry's foreign policy. Terentrians recognized that the British Royal Navy was their ultimate source of protection, but it was strongly felt that Tarrantry needed a strong navy of its own. Following a decline in the 1870s and 1880s - after the War of 1870 had seemed to weaken France - a war scare in 1890 led to a revitalization of the fleet, and by 1900 Tarrantry had six pre-dreadnoughts and four large armored cruisers built or under construction. The Entente between France and Britain altered Tarrantry's strategic thinking. A general European war was clearly looming, and Tarrantry hoped to preserve its neutrality. Consideration was given to basing the fleet on powerful armored cruisers - a proposal made especially by then-Captain Rene Delacroix I - but the dreadnought revolution confused the issue.
Already in 1905-06 Tarrantry had laid down a 'marginal dreadnought,' L'Inflexible, with 8 x 12", in twin turrets fore and aft and single turrets on the wings, as well as two not-quite-battlecruisers, Hyrcanie and Guerriere, with 8 x 10", all on the centerline with a superfiring turret forward. These were followed by two dreadnoughts, Richemont and Constant (10 x 12"), and the battlecruiser Foudroyant (8 x 12"), and then by the powerful battlecruisers Ste Catherine and Taranis (8 x 14"). These, the last prewar capital ships, were modernized in the 1930s and are still major fleet units in 1940.
Tarrantry was neutral in the first months of World War I, but the German U-boat campaign was regarded as intolerable. The sinking of Lusitania was the last straw; on 11 May 1915 Tarrantry declared war on Germany. The Ste Catherines served with the Grand Fleet at Jutland, and during the German Atlantic battlecruiser raids of 1917-18 the Ste Catherine sank the Derfflinger after an epic duel.
Postwar plans called for two battleships and two "super-cruisers," but due to the Washington Treaty only the battleship Hyrcanie (8 x 16") and super-cruiser Sans Souci (12 x 8") were completed. (Note that the Sans Souci was designed before anyone expected 8" cruisers to become the Treaty standard.) A sister ship to Sans Souci was completed as the carrier Fauconniere. As a trading state, Tarrantry was hard-hit by the Great Depression, and a moderate Socialist, Pierre de Fossier, became Prime Minister in 1933. He has been in office ever since - save for a few weeks after the Hitler-Stalin Pact caused the Communists to join the Conservative opposition in a vote of no-confidence. The outbreak of war quickly brought him back to office (with some help from Captain Rene Delacroix III, who in a much-hushed-up episode decked Prime Minister Mirabeau).
A strong navalist in spite of his leftish leanings, de Fossier used a naval buildup in the 1930s both to support employment in the shipyards and to prepare for an eventual war against Nazi Germany. (In 1936, in another hushed-up episode, the Sans Souci under Capt. Rene Delacroix III engaged the panzerschiff Deutschland off the coast of Spain and sent her home badly damaged.) Major construction in the 1930s includes three more 'super-cruisers,' Hastings, Sans Pareil, and Patrice (9 x 10") - rated as capital ships for Treaty purposes - and the fast battleships Trevanne and Longine (9 x 14"). Also worthy of note are several 'aviation cruisers' combining a flight deck with 6" guns forward, and, just completing, the big light cruisers Ardent and Temeraire, with 16 x 6" in four quad turrets. Anticipating events a bit, this last class will come to the attention of Americans during the war, who dub them 'Colnille Pianos.'
