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Lovely stuff @Kienzle. I normally find it difficult to get into AARs with such a 'strange' set-up compared to real history but you've done a great job of setting the world up. A true world war, with a continuous battle zone from Dunkirk to Da Nang(!!!), I dare say you might end up putting our WW1 to shame.
The meatgrinder at Brno was brutal 100,000+ casualties. I don't blame your troops for looking sideways at Italian generals going forward. The loss at sea is interesting, for a global war the naval side is very important. However its nice to see roadblocks thrown up for the human player
Will be following, very much looking forward to more.
Thank you - I often feel similarly about alt-history scenarios. At the same time though, I like the degree of artistic license one has, along with the sense that there is no historical "canon" that constrains the narrative. I will try to keep including details that make the setting feel alive!
Thank you very much!
Apologies for the slow writing pace, all. This next chapter will address some darker themes and I want to make sure I do them justice, which takes time. The update should be ready by early next week.
Having almost exclusively written projects within fairly strict (albeit self imposed) historicist boundaries, I have to say that this sort of freedom has always appealed to me as well. This AAR shows an alternate canon being built very nicely, I must say. I may yet have to try it one day!
Part IV: The Cost of Victory
Part IV: The Cost of Victory
Zachadia completed full mobilization late in the summer of 1916. Across the nation in April and May, young men had assembled in dusty village squares and crowded city plazas before mustering to training camps where they were each handed a Vz. 98 bolt action rifle along with powder blue fatigues and sturdy leather boots. Training lasted three months, which meant that the majority of these new soldiers began to be shipped to the front lines by mid-August.
Many units passed through the capital on their way to the front, and if one stood in Prague Main Station on a hot summers day in 1916, crowds of blue uniforms would have dominated the scene. Throngs of soldiers gathered in groups to play cards, to share illicit flasks of vodka or simply to wander outside and gaze at the city for what might have been their first time. To an observer, it might have seemed as though the glory of Zachadia was concentrated on this one point in time and space as the boisterous young men gathered while awaiting to be shipped far across the Kingdom, and indeed across the globe.
Units were formed, attritted, reformed, amalgamated and disbanded. A factory worker from Dębica might have been on a mortar team alongside a farmer from Oradea, who if he knew Interslavic at all, spoke it with a thick Hungarian accent that rendered mutual comprehension difficult if not impossible. Yet these men, gathering in their tens of thousands across the far corners of the globe, still found common ground. They spoke of their lives before the war and dreamed of a world which might come after it.
The sacrifice made by thousands of Thai soldiers during the Siege of Rewa became an important rallying cry during the Siamese Independence Movement later in the 20th century.
Later that same month, Zachadia suffered another grievous defeat in the Asian theater, this time at sea. The Asiatic Squadron was intercepted by the Albin Pacific Fleet, itself escorting a massive invasion force of over 30,000 colonial soldiers. Admiral Petr Moravec, following sightings of the fleet off the coast of Sarawak, directed his small mixed force of light cruisers and destroyers to trail it from a distance in the hope of making an end run around the screening force and attacking vulnerable transports as they prepared to disembark troops on Malaya. Yet foul weather forced the Albin fleet to spread out, ironically leading to a chance encounter early on the morning of January 22nd in which two Albin heavy cruisers chanced upon the Zachad force and gave chase. Though the lighter ships held a speed advantage, wireless transmissions allowed the larger Albin fleet to vector in reinforcements from multiple directions.
Admiral Aelfgar Hayden’s Pacific Fleet, steaming south off the coast of Shanghai.
The Battle of the Straits of Johore virtually guaranteed Occidental supremacy in East Asia for the rest of the war.
Already apoplectic over the losses in Asia, King Charles told Prime Minister Láska and Minister of War Radomír Nováček to commit the Army to the defense of the African colonies, even if it required transferring forces from the Balkans or the German front. It was a radical departure from his earlier caution over launching the Bohemian Offensive, and reflected the growing concern that Zachadia could no longer afford to patiently wear away at its enemies.
East Africa, however, quickly became the locus of the continent as the Albin General Edric Ramsey’s Army of Central Africa launched a major invasion of Zachad Abyssinia. Combined with a small Dutch colonial contingent, Ramsey could call upon more than 100,000 soldiers in East Africa, most of whom were better equipped and trained than the Zachad colonial forces in the region. General Maximilian Rokytnice scrambled to respond to the offensive, quickly settling on a strategy of “defeat in detail” as the Albin forces spread out to cover the vast terrain of Abyssinia.
For the first two months of the campaign, the lack of a front line led to a classical war of maneuver as the European armies danced around each other, both sides attempting to isolate the enemy on favorable terms. Finally, Rokytnice detached his Fifth Corps, a force primarily composed of Hungarian and Czech professional soldiers, to the north in an attempt to lure away Ramsey. The faint was successful, and he managed to engage 16,000 Albin colonial soldiers under Arnolf Bodwin in Sidamo province, where they were cut off and destroyed.
Word of the Fifth’s advance had reached General Rokytnice shortly after he had dealt with Bodwin’s forces near Irgalem. He had responded by immediately ordering a forced march towards Bonga, a distance of almost 250 kilometers. The march took place over rough terrain, and that Rokytnice’s men reached Bonga in just over two weeks is a testament to the sheer grit and exertion of men who knew that for every second they delayed, their comrades to the north paid for it in blood. On the morning of July 2nd, Rokytnice’s Army of East Africa began an assault from the south end of Barta Valley and tore through Edric Ramsey’s poorly-defended rear echelon. By the end of the first day of fighting, the Albin were effectively bottled inside of the valley.
Zachad troops climbing a ridge near Tarcha, Abyssinia during the relief of Bonga.
But there is a darker side to this story.
His accounts quickly found their way into the press of the Occidental Alliance nations, where Zachad atrocities were paraded as proof of the Paris Pact’s innate savagery and lack of humanity. They were, of course, just as resoundingly disputed by Zachadia and her allies, who wrote off the reports as mere wartime propaganda. Yet in the post-war era, their veracity ultimately came to light as follow-on investigations continued to turn up evidence of barbaric practices that found widespread adoption in colonial Abyssinia during the wartime years. Today, the Barker Journals are a black mark of shame upon Zachadia’s history - one that subsequent generations of Zachad citizens have all-too-frequently shied away from addressing in full.
At the culmination of the East Africa Campaign, the war had lasted just over a year. In that time, the great powers had recorded a combined total of just under nine million military casualties, roughly a third of which were deaths. Far more would become crippled veterans, begging on the streets of the sleek European capitals after the war. Yet more would appear unharmed, yet spend the rest of their lives tormented by invisible mental scars that bore out the trauma of the conflict.
Even these losses are known, discussed and respected, however. What is not? The suffering of the civilian population in the Balkans, Anatolia and the Middle East whose homes were destroyed by fighting, and who waged brutal war upon each other in the name of religion or ethnicity. The people of northern India who starved during the winter of 1917 after their harvests were ruined by artillery. The nameless thousands of rubber workers in Abyssinia punished by mutilation for failing to deliver on time. And many, many more. The European powers paid all of these costs without hesitation, along with their vast millions of young men, in their great game. This was the cost of victory.
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Whew, apologies for the wait, all. The story has now finally caught up to where I am in the gameplay, so I now get to return to actually... Playing it. Also, now that this is finished, I'm looking forward to catching up on all the other AARs in this forum! Finally, I saw that a few readers have nominated this story for the ACAs - thank you very, very much, your support means a lot to me.
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Fantastic update. Really loved seeing the breadth of the war – victory and defeat, noble sacrifice and unspeakable barbarism. The fragment from the Seventies was a lovely touch. Very timely as well, what with the current debate over the necessity of preserving certain statues.
Now that we know that victory is coming at some point, it’ll be interesting to see where the final turning point comes.
Now that we know that victory is coming at some point, it’ll be interesting to see where the final turning point comes.
Africa is really a place of death at this time and this game, for one reason or another.
Thank you! Yes, my intention was to convey some of the suffering and heartbreak that we often miss out on when discussing wars. As for victory, it is slowly approaching in Europe, but the Albin victories at sea and in the colonies will drag things out. Much as in our Great War, there will be more calls to get directly involved on the Continent as their ally reaches its breaking point.
It is. Definitely a case of the strong doing what they can and the weak suffering what they must during this period.
Ah my man. Good chapter and professional writing again. I love the professor's little paragraph. Different perspectives are always good to see.
Description of the Barta Valley offensive was also very well done
Over all its very cool
Description of the Barta Valley offensive was also very well done
Over all its very cool
Super cool AAR, extremely high quality. Nice work! I'm disappointed I've only found it now! I'd love to take a look at any changes you made to the Bohemia war and the Roman intervention in the Arab War bit! I'll keep following, and let me know if you need help or advice or suggestions, or have any suggestions for the mod of your own!
I'm disappointed I've only found it now! I'd love to take a look at any changes you made to the Bohemia war and the Roman intervention in the Arab War bit! I'll keep following, and let me know if you need help or advice or suggestions, or have any suggestions for the mod of your own!
Thank you! As always, appreciate your comments and patronage, Orc.
Super cool AAR, extremely high quality. Nice work!
Thank you so much! Happy to share my modification to the Bohemian Civil War, while the Arab intervention is still quite WiP but I can send it to you too. In the next chapter (or potentially the one after that, depending on length) there is also another custom event related to the Middle East.
Yes! Hooray for alt-history.
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Whenever you like. If you're a Discord user, I just added a link to the recently-created server for the mod to the bottom of the mod's page.
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Part V: Ashes to Ashes
Thanks for the wait everyone. I wanted to finish up the war this update, but it went longer than anticipated. Hopefully should have the conclusion up soon!
Part V: Ashes to Ashes
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1917, the German Empire managed to hold a stable front along the Rhine in the west, the Alps in the south and along the Zachad border in the East. Enemy salients in the Ruhr and near Dresden, while concerning, were contained and the view from London was that Germany would be capable of holding the line while the Empire starved the Paris Pact into submission from the sea. This perfectly suited the Albin ruling party, the conservative Redbers Meg, who hoped that victory could be won without its citizens having to wade into the mud of the European theatre.
By July, however, this confidence had faded. A series of near mutinies on the Eastern Front after a failed German offensive into Hungary convinced the Albin government that further intervention on the continent would be necessary. Kaiser Friedrich’s appeals for reinforcement, a fixture in the alliance since the outbreak of war, grew frantic as German territory began to fall under enemy occupation. Reluctantly, Chancellor Fairfax agreed to commit Albin men to Germany’s defense.
Lord Iwan Fairfax, Chancellor of the Albin Empire 1914-1920. Though by his own admission uninterested in foreign policy, his tenure was dominated by the Great War and its fallout.
Close to 300,000 Albin soldiers had already been mobilized as part of the Reserve Defense Force, though their efforts were mostly wasted on digging fortifications along the coastline for an enemy that was nowhere near capable of landing an amphibious invasion. Particularly within the Army, the professional officer corps was desperate for a fight and many attempted to transfer to the colonies, where the chance of seeing action was greater. The majority of Albin citizens, however, were of mixed opinion, with some seeing the need to support the Empire’s ally and others understandably wishing to remain out of harm’s way. When the Redbers Meg announced another round of the draft in order to prepare the Army for combat in Europe, King-Emperor Leofwin III Iserning cautioned Fairfax that “we must join this war quickly, so that we may have the chance to leave it on our terms at all. Yet I doubt there is more than a year’s worth of enthusiasm among the people.”
In mid-July, the first Albin transports disembarked in Hamburg. By the end of August, there were well over 650,000 Albin soldiers deployed on the Western Front.[1]
The arrival of Albin troops in the late summer of 1917 promised to radically alter the balance of forces on the Western Front.
No sooner had the Albin Empire joined the campaign on the Rhine than the situation on Germany’s eastern border went from concerning to calamitous. The speed of the collapse stunned the Fairfax government, which had devoted troops on the assumption that the war effort, if not exactly proceeding as the Occidental Alliance had anticipated, was certainly not going smoothly for its enemies, either. Yet the Lebedev Offensive compelled a rapid reevaluation of the conflict’s future. In short order, the objectives of the Fairfax government evolved from “winning the war” to “not losing the war” and finally settled for merely “not losing the Empire.”
Thus, to understand the formation of the Ruhr Pocket and how the final year of the Great War played out, one must assess the strategic objectives of the Albin Empire and the leverage it had against its enemies. The primary explanation for why Fairfax ultimately convinced his monarch that it was time to surrender is that he understood - correctly - that this leverage was quickly diminishing. To explain why, one must first review the state of the non-European theaters in the fall of 1917, when unbeknownst to the combatants, just over a year remained until the conclusion of the Great War.
Despite the immense size of the Albin Empire’s African colonies, the summer campaign in Zachad Abyssinia proved a disaster for the Empire, the ramifications of which only became clear in late September. General Rokytnice followed up his miraculous victory at Bonga by pursuing the disorganized remnants of Ramsey’s Army of Central Africa back across the border and delivering it a second defeat. Hispanian and Russian reinforcements following behind mopped up the survivors, allowing Rokytnice first to assist in the liberation of Kanem-Bornu and subsequently to push into the Albin Gold Coast. The Emirate was fully liberated by the first week of October, though it would take years before it recovered from the period of wartime occupation.
Failure in Africa was a major setback for the Empire due to two reasons. First, it largely ameliorated the impact of the Baltic blockade, as Paris Pact control of the Mediterranean allowed for the steady transport of raw materials to the countries of Eastern Europe, the Italian Peninsula, and Spain. France, the most dependent upon Atlantic trade of any of the Pact, was able to acquire commodities via “neutral” Aquitania, who only became more willing to act as an intermediary the longer the war progressed. Second, it proved that of the three major theaters of the war - Europe, Africa and Asia - the Occidental Alliance was really only dominant in one, and the least important at that. Though wartime censorship and careful management of the press mitigated the realization of this by the masses, the Redbers Meg was certainly aware of what this entailed and became increasingly myopic about the war.
The Luni River Offensive smashed aside what little Smolenskii forces remained in India, preparing the way for a relief of Iran that ultimately proved too little, too late.
As such, going into the latter half of 1917, the Occidental Alliance was growing more wary by the day. When confronted with the ferocity of the Lebedev Offensive, Albin leadership shifted to discussing how not to win back the initiative, but to salvage what remained of the war effort.
The Lebedev Offensive
After victory in Africa, the Paris Pact was conducting its own strategic review going as the end of the year approached. Of greatest concern to the league was the capability of France to withstand another year of fighting. King Henri was adamant that the Kingdom could not sustain its losses in the Ruhr, especially now that Albin soldiers were filling gaps in the German lines. Moreover, alone among the Paris Pact, France was cut off from its allies and faced the most severe blockade. A shock was needed to bring the German Empire to its knees, relieve pressure on France and, if possible, link the two fronts.
General Ivan Lebedev, an aristocratic Smolenskii officer with close familial ties to the Sitnikov monarchy, suggested a general offensive along Germany’s eastern front. Zachad forces, concentrated in Bohemia and along the nation’s southern border, would advance into Austria while Smolenskii forces, predominantly in the north, pushed into Pomerania. To prepare the vast offensive Lebedev envisioned, vast manpower reserves would be concentrated in the operational rear, ready to take over as frontline units were diminished. Artillery fire was restricted for a month in order to reserve shells for a sustained bombardment, one meant to last a week without halt. Zachadia loaned over 1000 new LT vz. 17 tanks to its ally, a new model employing a rotating turret with a heavy machine gun that had proved highly effective in early combat trials. Commanders planned to implement warfighting technology in new ways, such as massing tanks alongside infantry assaults, or directly supporting infantry with aircraft.
Initial planning for the operation began in September, but logistical issues throughout the month made it difficult to amass the amount of munitions necessary to start while the weather remained warm. As a result, the offensive began on October 8th, a week after the first snowflakes had begun to fall in the Alps. Poor weather prevented aircraft from assisting with reconnaissance and direct support, while Zachad soldiers in Austria faced an enemy which had had over a year to prepare for a defense of the mountain passes. Casualties were severe.
Towards the second week of October, however, German defenses began to crumble in Austria. Frustrated with the lack of results by more traditional mass assaults, divisional commanders began encouraging small units of skirmishers to engage the enemy throughout the rugged terrain, occupying parts of a trench and then following up by concentrating forces against the now-weak section of the German lines. Through a combination of determination and these new tactics, Zachad generals achieved a breakthrough at the town of Judenburg despite suffering a nearly three-to-one casualty ratio in the process. But the greatest successes of the Lebedev Offensive unfolded in north Germany.
The last year of the war led to a new wave of casualties. Zachad citizens found solace from their grief in the arms of religion and, increasingly, through artistic expression.
Pushing west into Prussia, Smolenskii forces quickly reversed the gains of the German spring offensive, with most of the territory belonging to the former Kingdom of Brandenburg falling by early November. The German 5th and 2nd Corps prepared for a defense along the Oder, but lacked the manpower and supplies to effectively resist the Smolenskii onslaught, itself made up of fresh troops drawn from the Kingdom’s west. Critical breakthroughs occurred near Greifenhagen, south of Stettin, where the rapid advance threatened to encircle the troops defending Potsdam against the Romanian and Yugoslavian advance out of Dresden to the southeast. Faced with the prospect of being cut off, the Heer fell back in poor order, losing equipment and heavy artillery along the way that further diminished its fighting capability.
The onset of winter combined with a general sense that the war was now lost, causing German morale to plummet. In many cases, disorganized units simply disintegrated in the face of the Lebedev Offensive, initially in the north but soon in the south of Germany as soldiers chose to make their way home. Smolenskii forces entered the outskirts of Brunswick on November 15th, triggering the flight of Kaiser Friedrich and the Royal Family east to the Rheinland. The following week, Zachad and French forces met in Hesse, finally linking the two European fronts. The end of the war seemed imminent - yet nearly a year of bloody fighting remained.
Dawn of the Final Year
On November 17th, Kaiser Friedrich sent a telegram to the Fairfax government indicating his intention to abdicate the throne in favor of his 27-year old son, Johann, in preparation for a ceasefire and eventual peace treaty with the Paris Pact. The Kaiser’s announcement had been anticipated for months by Fairfax and King-Emperor Leofwin, who had quietly prepared their own “exigency measures” for just such an occasion. Early on the morning of the 19th, a faction of senior generals including the senior commander of the Army of the Ruhr, Marshal Klaus von Ebner, moved the Crown Prince into “protective custody” before presenting the Kaiser with a letter of resignation awaiting his signature. “Not quite a coup,” wrote Fairfax to the King-Emperor about the incident later. “That is far too dirty a word.”
While ostensibly under the guidance of the monarchy, the nation was now managed by a coterie of military leaders aligned with the Albin Empire. Both parties intended to continue the war as long as possible, exhausting the Paris Pact at what should have been its moment of triumph. Hundreds of thousands of Albin soldiers along with several reconstituted German corps formed a salient in the northwest of Germany, strengthened by the Ruhr’s industry and anchored by Dutch ports to their back. The prospect of dislodging them was far from appealing for the Paris Pact. Worse, the Pact’s leaders now had to contend with deteriorating conditions in the Eastern Theatre, as a transfer of Romanian and Yugoslavian forces away to the German front had allowed the Roman Republic to reclaim much of western Anatolia. Albin forces had begun to liberate western Iran as well, and while overall victory was no longer a possibility, it appeared that Zachadia and Smolensk could be painfully bled into the sands of the Middle East.
Prime Minister Láska’s reaction to the lack of surrender was one of confusion, and then of anger. “The enemy is determined to arouse our vengeance,” he wrote in a rare display of frustration. “And the nation sees fit to grant them their wish.” The Lebedev Offensive had shown that aggressive action, coupled with a willingness to accept casualties, could force the German and Albin Empires to give ground. With this in mind, the Prime Minister issued the Army a blank check to achieve victory in Europe. “The people of this great Kingdom are behind you,” he wrote. “Do whatever is necessary.”
On December 12th, a combined force of nearly 300,000 Zachad and Yugoslavian troops under the Yugoslavian general Dragoljub Ojdanić[2] commenced an attack on the Fortress of Straßburg. The fortress, really a network of several forts and extensive trenchworks, was the southernmost point of the Albin salient in the Rheinland - what was now commonly referred to as the Ruhr Pocket. It was to prove the longest and most costly battle of the war.
Yugoslavian soldiers clad in gas masks await the order to go over the top, c. December 1917.
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[2] I like to think that this randomly-generated name is a far better person ITTL than the real life Dragoljub Ojdanić...
Part V: Ashes to Ashes
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1917, the German Empire managed to hold a stable front along the Rhine in the west, the Alps in the south and along the Zachad border in the East. Enemy salients in the Ruhr and near Dresden, while concerning, were contained and the view from London was that Germany would be capable of holding the line while the Empire starved the Paris Pact into submission from the sea. This perfectly suited the Albin ruling party, the conservative Redbers Meg, who hoped that victory could be won without its citizens having to wade into the mud of the European theatre.
By July, however, this confidence had faded. A series of near mutinies on the Eastern Front after a failed German offensive into Hungary convinced the Albin government that further intervention on the continent would be necessary. Kaiser Friedrich’s appeals for reinforcement, a fixture in the alliance since the outbreak of war, grew frantic as German territory began to fall under enemy occupation. Reluctantly, Chancellor Fairfax agreed to commit Albin men to Germany’s defense.
Lord Iwan Fairfax, Chancellor of the Albin Empire 1914-1920. Though by his own admission uninterested in foreign policy, his tenure was dominated by the Great War and its fallout.
In mid-July, the first Albin transports disembarked in Hamburg. By the end of August, there were well over 650,000 Albin soldiers deployed on the Western Front.[1]
The arrival of Albin troops in the late summer of 1917 promised to radically alter the balance of forces on the Western Front.
Thus, to understand the formation of the Ruhr Pocket and how the final year of the Great War played out, one must assess the strategic objectives of the Albin Empire and the leverage it had against its enemies. The primary explanation for why Fairfax ultimately convinced his monarch that it was time to surrender is that he understood - correctly - that this leverage was quickly diminishing. To explain why, one must first review the state of the non-European theaters in the fall of 1917, when unbeknownst to the combatants, just over a year remained until the conclusion of the Great War.
Despite the immense size of the Albin Empire’s African colonies, the summer campaign in Zachad Abyssinia proved a disaster for the Empire, the ramifications of which only became clear in late September. General Rokytnice followed up his miraculous victory at Bonga by pursuing the disorganized remnants of Ramsey’s Army of Central Africa back across the border and delivering it a second defeat. Hispanian and Russian reinforcements following behind mopped up the survivors, allowing Rokytnice first to assist in the liberation of Kanem-Bornu and subsequently to push into the Albin Gold Coast. The Emirate was fully liberated by the first week of October, though it would take years before it recovered from the period of wartime occupation.
Failure in Africa was a major setback for the Empire due to two reasons. First, it largely ameliorated the impact of the Baltic blockade, as Paris Pact control of the Mediterranean allowed for the steady transport of raw materials to the countries of Eastern Europe, the Italian Peninsula, and Spain. France, the most dependent upon Atlantic trade of any of the Pact, was able to acquire commodities via “neutral” Aquitania, who only became more willing to act as an intermediary the longer the war progressed. Second, it proved that of the three major theaters of the war - Europe, Africa and Asia - the Occidental Alliance was really only dominant in one, and the least important at that. Though wartime censorship and careful management of the press mitigated the realization of this by the masses, the Redbers Meg was certainly aware of what this entailed and became increasingly myopic about the war.
The Luni River Offensive smashed aside what little Smolenskii forces remained in India, preparing the way for a relief of Iran that ultimately proved too little, too late.
The Lebedev Offensive
After victory in Africa, the Paris Pact was conducting its own strategic review going as the end of the year approached. Of greatest concern to the league was the capability of France to withstand another year of fighting. King Henri was adamant that the Kingdom could not sustain its losses in the Ruhr, especially now that Albin soldiers were filling gaps in the German lines. Moreover, alone among the Paris Pact, France was cut off from its allies and faced the most severe blockade. A shock was needed to bring the German Empire to its knees, relieve pressure on France and, if possible, link the two fronts.
General Ivan Lebedev, an aristocratic Smolenskii officer with close familial ties to the Sitnikov monarchy, suggested a general offensive along Germany’s eastern front. Zachad forces, concentrated in Bohemia and along the nation’s southern border, would advance into Austria while Smolenskii forces, predominantly in the north, pushed into Pomerania. To prepare the vast offensive Lebedev envisioned, vast manpower reserves would be concentrated in the operational rear, ready to take over as frontline units were diminished. Artillery fire was restricted for a month in order to reserve shells for a sustained bombardment, one meant to last a week without halt. Zachadia loaned over 1000 new LT vz. 17 tanks to its ally, a new model employing a rotating turret with a heavy machine gun that had proved highly effective in early combat trials. Commanders planned to implement warfighting technology in new ways, such as massing tanks alongside infantry assaults, or directly supporting infantry with aircraft.
Initial planning for the operation began in September, but logistical issues throughout the month made it difficult to amass the amount of munitions necessary to start while the weather remained warm. As a result, the offensive began on October 8th, a week after the first snowflakes had begun to fall in the Alps. Poor weather prevented aircraft from assisting with reconnaissance and direct support, while Zachad soldiers in Austria faced an enemy which had had over a year to prepare for a defense of the mountain passes. Casualties were severe.
Towards the second week of October, however, German defenses began to crumble in Austria. Frustrated with the lack of results by more traditional mass assaults, divisional commanders began encouraging small units of skirmishers to engage the enemy throughout the rugged terrain, occupying parts of a trench and then following up by concentrating forces against the now-weak section of the German lines. Through a combination of determination and these new tactics, Zachad generals achieved a breakthrough at the town of Judenburg despite suffering a nearly three-to-one casualty ratio in the process. But the greatest successes of the Lebedev Offensive unfolded in north Germany.
The last year of the war led to a new wave of casualties. Zachad citizens found solace from their grief in the arms of religion and, increasingly, through artistic expression.
The onset of winter combined with a general sense that the war was now lost, causing German morale to plummet. In many cases, disorganized units simply disintegrated in the face of the Lebedev Offensive, initially in the north but soon in the south of Germany as soldiers chose to make their way home. Smolenskii forces entered the outskirts of Brunswick on November 15th, triggering the flight of Kaiser Friedrich and the Royal Family east to the Rheinland. The following week, Zachad and French forces met in Hesse, finally linking the two European fronts. The end of the war seemed imminent - yet nearly a year of bloody fighting remained.
On November 17th, Kaiser Friedrich sent a telegram to the Fairfax government indicating his intention to abdicate the throne in favor of his 27-year old son, Johann, in preparation for a ceasefire and eventual peace treaty with the Paris Pact. The Kaiser’s announcement had been anticipated for months by Fairfax and King-Emperor Leofwin, who had quietly prepared their own “exigency measures” for just such an occasion. Early on the morning of the 19th, a faction of senior generals including the senior commander of the Army of the Ruhr, Marshal Klaus von Ebner, moved the Crown Prince into “protective custody” before presenting the Kaiser with a letter of resignation awaiting his signature. “Not quite a coup,” wrote Fairfax to the King-Emperor about the incident later. “That is far too dirty a word.”
While ostensibly under the guidance of the monarchy, the nation was now managed by a coterie of military leaders aligned with the Albin Empire. Both parties intended to continue the war as long as possible, exhausting the Paris Pact at what should have been its moment of triumph. Hundreds of thousands of Albin soldiers along with several reconstituted German corps formed a salient in the northwest of Germany, strengthened by the Ruhr’s industry and anchored by Dutch ports to their back. The prospect of dislodging them was far from appealing for the Paris Pact. Worse, the Pact’s leaders now had to contend with deteriorating conditions in the Eastern Theatre, as a transfer of Romanian and Yugoslavian forces away to the German front had allowed the Roman Republic to reclaim much of western Anatolia. Albin forces had begun to liberate western Iran as well, and while overall victory was no longer a possibility, it appeared that Zachadia and Smolensk could be painfully bled into the sands of the Middle East.
Prime Minister Láska’s reaction to the lack of surrender was one of confusion, and then of anger. “The enemy is determined to arouse our vengeance,” he wrote in a rare display of frustration. “And the nation sees fit to grant them their wish.” The Lebedev Offensive had shown that aggressive action, coupled with a willingness to accept casualties, could force the German and Albin Empires to give ground. With this in mind, the Prime Minister issued the Army a blank check to achieve victory in Europe. “The people of this great Kingdom are behind you,” he wrote. “Do whatever is necessary.”
On December 12th, a combined force of nearly 300,000 Zachad and Yugoslavian troops under the Yugoslavian general Dragoljub Ojdanić[2] commenced an attack on the Fortress of Straßburg. The fortress, really a network of several forts and extensive trenchworks, was the southernmost point of the Albin salient in the Rheinland - what was now commonly referred to as the Ruhr Pocket. It was to prove the longest and most costly battle of the war.
Yugoslavian soldiers clad in gas masks await the order to go over the top, c. December 1917.
[1] I moved these guys via console[2] I like to think that this randomly-generated name is a far better person ITTL than the real life Dragoljub Ojdanić...
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The Ruhr battle is going to be bloody indeed, if it will prove the bloodiest of the way, given that what has happened thus far hasn't precisely been casualty-free
Quite...
The general obstinacy to keep fighting despite the mounting horror (and casualty count) truly baffles the mind, and I understand Laska's aggressive reaction to not receiving a surrender. Incredible that there's still a year to go – and with bitter action in the Ruhr no doubt it will start off on an incredibly bloody note.
Yep. This is the first time in the war Zachadia has been facing enemies with lower war exhaustion, dug into good terrain, with serious numbers. But it proves to be a necessary sacrifice.
The sunken cost fallacy at play, I'm afraid - mixed with a potent dose of nationalism and distance from those suffering from one's decisions.
You can guess that after the war, Zachadia will not tolerate the existence of another continental hegemon, especially one on her border.
Wow man this AAR has a fluidity which is so enjoyable
Once ahain your technical language makes it very interesting to reas
It looks like the Germans are fighting desperately
This war will be fought to the finish
Once ahain your technical language makes it very interesting to reas
It looks like the Germans are fighting desperately
This war will be fought to the finish
Part VI: End of an Era
Thanks as always, Orc. Yes - the war is fought to the very last drop of blood, as you shall see...
Part VI: End of an Era
As the Great War hurtled into its last desperate act, fighting centered upon two defensive actions maintained by what was left of the Occidental Alliance. In the east, the Roman Republic held onto a stretch of rugged terrain outside of occupied Constantinople. From there, it launched occasional raids upon the reduced Romanian and Yugoslavian armies holding onto the Anatolian Peninsula, relying on guerilla warfare to bleed its enemies dry in the hope that Ablin relief forces would soon arrive. Yet that would be a long wait indeed.
It was obvious to all that the West was where the war would be decided. The remnants of the German Empire, along with hundreds of thousands of soldiers belonging to the Albin Expeditionary Force, fought with tenacity and experience garnered from over a year’s worth of trench warfare. The crux of this campaign was the charnel house known as Straßburg. It lasted over seven months, during which the two sides collectively fired more than two million artillery shells and suffered nearly 250,000 casualties.
The central Fortress of Straßburg viewed from a Zachad reconnaissance aircraft, after four months of fighting.
On the home front, the war accompanied a vigorous policy debate about the future of the Zachad economy. The conflict had led to the beginnings of a liquidity crisis, and voices within the government now called for the Royal Bank of Zachadia to move off of the gold standard - a policy ironically modeled upon that of Germany - which would better control inflation as the Kingdom spent down its fiscal reserves. The Partia Socjaldemokracja found itself in the awkward position of partnering with staunch monarchists, the Konfederacja Targowicka, which maintained a highly interventionist policy on trade. Even the grousing of the liberals, however, was drowned out by calls for wartime unity as well as the Kingdom’s glaring need to stabilize its economy.
Parliamentary deliberations in Prague, 1918.
When at last the remnants of the former Republican Army engaged Zachad forces en masse in late March, the result was as expected. Low on ammunition and supplies, the Romans were dispatched with overwhelming firepower that nearly leveled the town of Nicaea. Among the dead was Consul Iossif Argyrou, whose bellicosity in 1916 had begun the war almost exactly two years prior. The Consul’s passage collapsed what remained of the Republic’s will to resist its enemies. General Themistoklis Kolokotronis announced the formation of an interim military government and began ceasefire negotiations with the Paris Pact.
The conditions were ripe for unrest. On June 20th, an aristocrat and member of the Bavarian State Council, Otto of the house of Knesebeck, gave a speech in Nuremberg calling for a general uprising against the lawful German Empire and occupying Paris Pact alike. Calling the Empire “a corpse shackled to Albin parasites,” Knesebeck rallied over 30,000 civilians to his cause, the political aims of which were ill-defined and seemed to go no further than “expelling the enemy from the Fatherland.” Within two days, a wave of smaller uprisings spread throughout Bavaria, requiring the rerouting of 78,000 Zachad soldiers initially bound for the fighting along the Ruhr Pocket. After a week of bloody street fighting, the majority of the rebels dispersed and Otto himself was executed. Yet it hinted at the dark chapter awaiting Germany after the Great War.
Few politicians or military commanders in the Paris Pact concerned themselves with the state of Germany’s society at the end of the war, however. Their focus was entirely on the efforts of the Albin Empire to sustain the fighting in the Ruhr Pocket while maintaining a blockade along the European coast. The first sign that the Albin, too, were nearing their breaking point came on July 22nd, when the exhausted forces of General Byrnod Gren finally surrendered what was left of the Fortress of Straßburg after holding out for the better part of a year. With the city of Straßburg now defenseless, General Ojdanić immediately moved in and secured its vital manufacturing centers, denying Albin and German soldiers an important source of their ammunition and supplies.
On the morning of October 7th, the last element of leverage for Fairfax and the Empire slipped away when Admiral Moravec led the Baltic Fleet out from its home port of Gdansk. After steaming west for two days, Moravec engaged the outer perimeter of the Albin blockade off the coast of Jutland, sinking three cruisers without loss of his own. The Baltic Fleet then quietly passed into the Helgoland Bight where it encountered the German Heimatsflotte, a reserve force now relegated to protecting the Dutch coastline. Over the course of the afternoon on October 10th, the two fleets formed up and began to duel. This time, the Zachad sailors acquitted themselves well, sinking four German dreadnoughts, two battlecruisers and eight light cruisers for a loss of two dreadnoughts and four battlecruisers of their own.
Spontaneous worker uprisings throughout western Germany signaled the end of the Occidental Alliance’s ability to prosecute the war.
A Lasting Peace: The Treaty of Chantilly
Within a week after the declaration of the cease fire, plans were already being drawn up for a diplomatic conference to be held in Chantilly, hereditary seat of the French de Tournus monarchy. Located no more than a few hours outside of Paris, the location was chosen not only for its convenience but also to state an unambiguous message, one different from meeting in neutral territory. The Paris Pact was intent on demonstrating to its enemies that the conference would not be a compromise, but rather the dictation of terms.
The reality was more complicated, of course. While the Albin and German empires had been thoroughly bested in continental Europe, Albin fleets still held a tenuous grip on the seas. Moreover, aside from the Albin Empire, the rest of the Occidental Alliance was barely present at the talks. While the Crown Prince Johann (his coronation had yet to take place) theoretically represented the legal government of Germany, by the time of Chantilly, Germany was deep in civil war, and both the communists and the ultranationalists roundly rejected the treaty process. The Roman Republic, too, lacked a civilian government, and instead sent a representative of the junta led by General Kolokotronis.
Nonetheless, the leaders of the Paris Pact were conscious of the need to “craft a lasting peace,” as King Rodion of Smolensk advised his Foreign Secretary, Kasaty Antonovich, before he departed. In their deliberations, they made repeated reference to the Toledo Conference almost a century before, in which the western European Grand Alliance had partitioned Revolutionary Hispania and largely succeeded in creating a new order that reified the existence of monarchies in a new age of nationalism. Now, the Paris Pact saw itself charged with establishing a new European balance of power - one that would also hedge against the growing threat of political extremism.
Crown Prince Johann, left, looks on as Imperial German ministers Konstantin von Appen and Dieter Lischke sign the terms of surrender at Chantilly, November 1918.
Apologies for the long wait on this one, everyone! Had a cross-country move recently that occupied a little more of my time. As the war is pretty much over by this point, I chose to skim through the action a little bit more than normal. I originally wanted to discuss Chantilly in detail, but decided to cap it here as this update is already getting long - we'll discuss the territorial changes and the German Civil War more next time.
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