Concord of Kapteyn

Signed on October 13, 3022, at the Terran Alps retreat of Elmau, the Concord of Kapteyn was an agreement between Houses Kurita, Marik and Liao that called for an end to hostilities, and mutual support in training and intelligence. It was meant to counterbalance the formation of the powerful Federated Commonwealth alliance by Houses Steiner and Davion.

Background

While the Third Succession War was slowly coming to an end, not because of any peace agreements but rather because total exhaustion had reduced the fighting to objective raids and small border skirmishes, Katrina Steiner issued a call for peace to the other great Houses. Only Hanse Davion replied, and even went so far as to suggest an alliance between Steiner's Lyran Commonwealth and his Federated Suns that would be cemented by his marriage to Katrina's daughter Melissa Steiner. The talks were moderated by ComStar messengers and the historic document was signed on Hilton Head Island, Terra, (the seat of ComStar's First Circuit) in 3022.

Information about this upcoming alliance reached the other Houses (unbeknownst to all involved, ComStar leaked the information on purpose). As ComStar had hoped this promted the others into action and through their ISF director Subhash Indrahar the Draconis Combine arranged a meeting between Coordinator Takashi Kurita, Janos Marik and Maximilian Liao on Terra in mid-summer of the same year. Marik initially refused to consider to ally the Free Worlds League with House Liao's Capellan Confederation who had incited the devastating Marik civil war in 3014, but Kurita prevailed and convinced them that a united Federated Commonwealth posed a danger that would destroy the others if they did not unite.

Purpose and effect

The mistrust between the Capellan Confederation and the unruly Free Worlds League continued to linger, and if the Concord of Kapteyn was ever thought to be a military alliance then it was a failure in that respect. It did, however, pacify the Marik/Liao border to some degree and thus freed up forces to be stationed along the Steiner and Davion borders, respectively, which in turn tied up enemy forces there and thus took pressure off the Draconis Combine. It was the Draconis Combine that stood to gain most from the Concord, as House Kurita's realm lay between the Steiner and Davion realms like a wedge and feared a unified enemy on two thirds of its borders. As such, the Draconis Combine was the obvious first target of the Steiner-Davion alliance.

However, in the Fourth Succession War that the united Federated Commonwealth launched six years later, the main thrust was actually against the Capellan Confederation which was utterly devastated, overrun and left in shambles, losing around half of its star systems. The Free Worlds League saw least of the fighting and essentially only intensified their border wars on the Steiner front, while the Draconis Combine had been lured into a ineffective assaults against Wolf's Dragoons on their Davion border that effectively neutralized the Combine as a threat while they struggled to repel the invading forces that swept in on their Steiner border. (House Kurita managed to nullify their own losses, and the Steiner gainss, through clever political maneuvering that created the Free Rasalhague Republic.)

The modest benefits that the Concord of Kapteyn brought include a relatively low-level technology exchange program. What is known is that the Free Worlds League serviced Draconis Combine BattleMechs, including the Orion of Theodore Kurita (a design for which only House Marik had any service facilities, factories and spare parts left). Further, the Draconis Combine and the Capellan Confederation began a technology exchange program to remedy the similar design faults on their disk-winged AeroSpace Fighter designs, the Sholagar and the Thrush respectively, but it did not stop the Sholagar from being phased out.

It is not known if or when the Concord of Kapteyn ran out, though it may simply have been overtaken and left outdated by the series of massive changes that the political landscape underwent a after the war.