Thank you for the complements! I am currently working on the next chapter and hope to be done some time this week!
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Thank you for the complements! I am currently working on the next chapter and hope to be done some time this week!
Chapter 8: Red August
Chapter 8: Red August
The August Offensives and the Fall of New York City.
In early August 1937, the United States found itself in an increasingly desperate situation on the Western Front. The Uprising in Washington had diverted badly needed troops and supplies from the frontlines in the Great Plains just when the CSA and AUS had been able to redirect their forces in the Ohio River Valley to fight the US.The August Offensives and the Fall of New York City.
General Patton’s had immediately launched an offensive across the entire Western Front, with the Army of Oklahoma and the Army of Arkansas breaking through The Army of the Mississippi’s lines in Nebraska and Iowa with the help of the German Legion Schwarzer Adler partially due to the lack of encryption of Federal communications. The only success Federal forces had achieved was in New Mexico where the Army of the Colorado had once again beaten back the Army of Texas’s assault across the Pecos River with the help of the Mexican División Águila and a division of Japanese Imperial Marines.
In Minnesota, the CSA’s First Army had penetrated the Army of the Mississippi’s frontlines in multiple locations, thanks again to the lack of a Federal communication code, and the Federal salient in Northern Missouri and Iowa was under severe threat of being cut off by a Syndicalist strike from the Northeast, and a Longist strike from the Southwest. The main Federal supply line into the Missouri salient ran from Sioux City down to Omaha, then over to Des Moines. General Patton recognized Omaha as a vital strategic point and ordered General Collins’s Army of Arkansas to take Omaha at all costs. On August 1st, 1937, the Longist 102nd “Ozark” Division and the 18th (Arkansas) Volunteer Division broke through the 37th (Nebraska) Volunteer Division’s positions on the Northern bank of the Platte River with the help of the Legion Schwarzer Adler’s air wings whose Ju-87s terrified the hapless Nebraskans with their sirens and accurate bombing runs. By the evening of August 2nd, the city was firmly in the hands of the Army of Arkansas, and the main supply route to the Missouri salient had been cut.
Pictured: The Missouri Salient, August, 1937.
General Truscott realized that there was no way he could hold on to Northeastern Missouri. It was only a matter of time before the divisions there were enveloped and wiped out. He secretly began gathering as many trucks as he could, camouflaging them with nets in the day and having them drive only at night towards the front. With advice from Entente military officers, the 35th Infantry Division holding the salient employed tactics devised by the ANZACs at Gallipoli during the First Weltkrieg. They attached rifles to buckets of water in their trenches which would periodically fire at Longist positions, making it appear as though they had not retreated. The deception worked, and on August 8th the last Federal troops peacefully withdrew from Missouri without the Army of Arkansas realizing they had left until it was too late.
The desperate situation on the West, and the slow grinding war of attrition on the East had been a massive burden for General George Marshall who had been trying to manage both fronts and their different requirements at the same time. General Marshall met with President Olson and requested that the fronts be split, and another general be given command of the Western Front so he could focus on the East. Olson agreed and on August 11th, General Malin Craig was promoted to command the entire Western Theatre of the war, including the Washington Front where General Krueger had just managed to corral the Syndicalist Eighth Army a few days before and had prevented them from reaching the Pacific Coast despite savage fighting in the rugged hills of Eastern Washington and Idaho.
General Craig quickly ordered General Krueger to not just contain the Eighth Army, but to destroy it at all costs as quickly as possible. He knew that as long as Federal troops were bogged down in Washington; it would be impossible to contain enemy offensives in the Great Plains where there simply were not enough men to cover the vast expanses of prairie.
The Syndicalist Eighth Army commander, General Edward Carter Jr., knew he had to reach the Pacific Ocean if his army were to have any chance of surviving. He launched a desperate second offensive on August 11th spearheaded by the “Joe Hill” Red Guard Division which advanced up the Wenatchee River to the town of Leavenworth before it was ambushed by the 50th (California) Volunteer Infantry Division in the rolling wooded hills and mountains of the region. The “Joe Hill” Division tried to withdraw back to the Columbia River but was cut off by a battalion of Californian volunteers from the Sierra Nevadas who had slipped behind their lines and entrenched in the Peshastin Pinnacles with field howitzers which bloodied every attempt to break through. On August 15th, two fresh volunteer divisions from Oregon, the 39th and 40th Volunteer divisions arrived to reinforce the 50th (California) and the “Joe Hill” Division made a last stand in the town of Dryden before they were completely wiped out. It appeared the Eighth Army would not be reaching the ocean that it so desperately needed to.
Pictured: A map of the Washington Front with the "Joe Hill" Division cut off.
The war in Minnesota gave the Syndicalists a much more optimistic outlook, however. The First Army’s offensive to retake the state showed no signs of slowing down, and on August 8th, Syndicalist forces began an assault on St. Paul. The 7th (Illinois), 8th (Illinois), and 22nd (Michigan) Infantry divisions assaulted the Federal 88th Infantry Division holding the city. General Truscott personally led the defense of the city and managed to hold off the overwhelming attack for eight days until he was wounded by enemy artillery fire on August 16th. News that Syndicalist “Henry Ness” and “John Belor” Red Guard divisions were threatening to take Minneapolis from the Northwest led to the seriously injured General Truscott to order the evacuation of St. Paul. On August 17th, 1937, Syndicalist forces once again raised their red banners over the devastated city.
Pictured: A White House memo regarding General Lucian Truscott being wounded over a map of the Minnesota Front.
Outside Pittsburgh, the Army of Delaware had been engaged in artillery and sniper duels with the remnants of the Sixth Army, reinforced by André Marty’s International Brigades, which had come up to fill the gap left by the collapse of the Keystone Pocket in May. General Omar Bradley had pulled some of his divisions into reserve in late July on the advice of the OSS who warned him of Syndicalist communications mentioning an uprising in the Northeast. Across the frontlines, USAAC reconnaissance planes had detected a large buildup of enemy troops and nighttime raids across no man’s land had captured foreign volunteers of the International Brigades who had revealed that there would likely be an offensive in the coming weeks.
Since the Thirty Day Deadline, Red Guards who had avoided capture or death in New England and New York had organized and gathered in the vicinity of New York City and Long Island under the guise of being war refugees. Only a handful of high-ranking officers and commissars had been aware of the planned uprising to avoid leaks. On the morning of August 19th, British commandos trained to speak with American accents aboard merchant ships loaded with French weapons slipped into New York Harbor. When the ships docked, the commandos violently seized control of the dock and fired flares into the air signaling the Red Guards in hiding to rise up. The United States government was caught off guard by the massive uprising in New York City. Armed platoons of Red Guards carrying Tommy guns and bolt action rifles seized control of bridges and intersections throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn as tens of thousands of others rushed to the docks to take up French arms. The streets of New York City rang out with the sounds of Syndicalist songs such as the Internationale, Which Side are You On, and the Commonwealth of Toil as red banners were hung out, including from the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. The Union of Britain and the Commune of France had finally enacted their plan to support their American counterparts.
Pictured: A map of the Syndicalist Uprising in New York City.
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Pictured: A news headline about the Fall of New York City.
The newly formed Ninth Army in New York, was put under the command of General Benjamin Katine, a local who had managed to survive the defeat of the Syndicalists in New York City during the Thirty Day deadline. He quickly organized the New York Red Guards into eleven divisions and concentrated on overrunning pockets of Loyalist militia and NYPD in the city. It was here that he made a critical mistake. Instead of advancing out of the city into New Jersey or New England, he concentrated on surviving Federal units in the city that had no hope of breaking out. As night fell, the last pocket of Federal troops and police in Manhattan surrendered and he finally deployed the “Solunksy” Red Guard Division up the Hudson to capture the United States Military Academy in West Point. He made his second critical mistake here. He focused on fortifying New York City and Long Island when most military experts and historians believe he should have attempted to take ground in New England and New Jersey to deny the Federal government access to the manpower and industry there. His hesitation and caution would cost the Ninth Army dearly in the months to come.
The “Solunsky” Red Guard Division moved slowly up the Hudson River, encountering a few loosely organized groups of Loyalist militia and police in Yonkers and Tarrytown, who were easily dispersed. At sunrise on August 20th, the “Solunsky” Division used captured ferries to cross the Hudson River, and began their attack on West Point. Most of the New York Syndicalists had experienced street fighting before the start of the Second Civil War, but none of them had participated in the conventional fighting throughout the first six months of the war and had not learned the valuable lessons that their peers in the Midwest had. The Red Guards charged through the woods and hills around West Point without artillery support, right into the Army cadets who had been alerted to the approaching Syndicalists by locals from Highland Falls. The cadets had dug in on the old redoubts outside of the Academy and rained heavy fire down on the Syndicalists who were beaten back with heavy losses. The Syndicalists charged twice more, and twice more they were beaten back by the cadets. It appeared that the fight for West Point would not be decided quickly, so the Syndicalists dug in around the Academy on both sides of the river and began a siege to starve the cadets out.
The Federal response to the New York Uprising was swift. New divisions that were being mustered in New England were rapidly deployed to New York, and reserve divisions from both the Army of the Delaware and the Army of the Potomac were detached and sent East to contain the Ninth Army. President Olson, on the recommendation of General Bradley, promoted General Dwight D. Eisenhower, “the Liberator of Philadelphia,” to command the newly formed Army of the Hudson to liberate New York City and Long Island from the clutches of the Syndicalists. By August 24th, the Army of the Hudson was engaged with the Ninth Army in the towns of Newburgh, Danbury, Newark, and Bridgeport. The 14th (New York) Volunteer Infantry Division attempted to break through the siege of West Point on August 25th but was beaten back by troops of the “Solunsky” Division entrenched on Butter Hill. The Siege of West Point would continue.
Pictured: The Army of the Hudson racing to contain the Ninth Army in New York City and Long Island.
Around Pittsburgh, the remnants of the Sixth Army and the International Brigades under the iron fist of André Marty launched a massive assault on the Army of the Delaware in conjunction with the New York Uprising. The various units of the International Brigades charged from their positions to drive Federal forces away from Pittsburgh and to possibly link up with the New York Uprising and provide the CSA with the coastal access it so desperately needed. The British Tarenni Column attacked the 2nd (Massachusetts) Volunteer Infantry Division at the important railroad hub of Rochester along the banks of the Ohio River to the Northwest of Pittsburgh. The Massachusetts volunteers, entrenched in the hills overlooking the river valley and supported by a squadron of USAAC BT dive bombers, slaughtered the British and drove them back. André Marty demanded the Column continue the attack or the unit would be punished for betraying the revolution, so British launched three more desperate charges, all of which were repulsed over the course of the day causing severe casualties. Famed Scottish poet and Tarenni Column volunteer Alex McDade, wounded twice in the Battle of Rochester, was inspired by the battle to write a poem, entitled “The Valley of Ohio.”
The poem would go on to become a song which became popular amongst the International volunteers as well as the Second Continental Army itself, though with more optimistic lyrics than the original poem’s cynicism.
Pictured: The Tarenni Column on the Pennsylvania Front, August 1937.
East of Pittsburgh, the German Syndicalist Thälmann-Kolonne and their ironic comrades of the 3rd Division of the Corps Lafayette attacked up the Allegheny River towards the town of Kittanning, facing off against the 24th (New York) and 53rd (New Hampshire) Volunteer Infantry divisions in the woods and hills of Western Pennsylvania. Both International Divisions had officer corps made up of Weltkrieg veterans, and many had fought against each other twenty years before in places like the Marne, Verdun, Artois, and Aisne. Now they fought side by side with their former foes, and though the Americans had learned a great deal about war during the last six months of fighting, the French and German veterans outmatched them from their years of Weltkrieg exerpience. Using effective artillery barrages, the Franco-German force blasted the American trenches near Crooked Creek with accurate bursts of fire, then followed with squadrons of storm troopers who moved through the woods to avoid American air attacks (though the usually overwhelming USAAC was spread thin across the front due to the uprising in New York which caused several squadrons to be diverted to the newly formed Army of the Hudson) and quickly seized the frontlines ahead of the main advance. The Americans fell into disarray and retreated back towards Ford City and Kittanning, allowing the Corps Lafayette to seize the former in brutal close quarters fighting while the Thälmann-Kolonne swung to the East in an attempt to cut off the American divisions. The Germans routed the 24th (New York) and nearly cut the Baltimore and Ohio railway before the timely arrival of 1st “Big Red One” Infantry Division by train, who halted their advance and prevented Kittanning from being surrounded.
Further to the East near the town of Blairsville, the Corpo Garibaldi launched an offensive against the 19th, 20th, and 21st (New York) Volunteer Infantry divisions. Many of the New York volunteers were descendents of Italian immigrants themselves, and historians have found multiple cases of members of extended Italian families fighting against each other throughout the hills of Central Pennsylvania. The American Italians, angered at the Syndicalist Uprising in New York City that threatened their homes, fought ferociously against their Italian cousins from Europe, yet the Corpo Garibaldi had the advantage on the front due to their own air wings that had been brought in before the war began. Italian close air support battered the New Yorkers and without sufficient air cover of their own, they were driven back as far as Laurel Ridge over the course of three days of harsh fighting.
Pictured: Italian Syndicalist Breda Ba.65 attack planes with the red star of the SCAAC over Pennsylvania, August 1937.
A similar situation occurred to the South of Blairsville, where André Marty ordered the Irish Connolly Column to capture the town of Mt. Pleasant, the scene of the Morewood Massacre of strikers forty years before, and a place known to many American Syndicalists. Mt. Pleasant was defended by the Federal Irish Brigade, which caused many in the Connolly Column to feel hesitant about their planned attack. The commander of the Connolly Column, Paddy O’Daire, passed his comrades’ complaints about having to fight against their own countrymen, many of whom they had fought alongside in the Irish Revolution against the United Kingdom. Andre Marty, at this point, had become even more paranoid and irrational by the CSA’s repeated defeats and failures in the war. He responded to the request by accusing O’Daire of counter revolutionary behavior and being a capitalist spy, arresting and sentencing him and several other Irish officers to death. Marty ordered Central Security Bureau (the CSA’s intelligence service) commissars sent to him by the Centralist (Totalist) head of the CSB, Steve Nelson, to force the Connolly Column to attack at gunpoint. The Irish Syndicalists had no choice but to attack. Backed by the Second Continental Army Air Corps, the Connolly Column pushed through the apple orchards North of the town into Mt. Pleasant and drove their opposing countrymen out. They chased the Irish Brigade through the town but soon became bogged down once they reached the base of the Laurel Highlands, where their foes had dug into a strong defensive position overlooking Mt. Pleasant and were able to shell the Connolly Column causing severe casualties and driving them back out of the town into the apple orchards. Famed Irish Syndicalist poet Charlie Donnelly reportedly stated, “even the apple trees are bleeding,” before he too was cut down by enemy machine gun fire North of the town. Mt. Pleasant would change hands six times over the next week, before finally ending up in the hands of the Federal Irish Brigade. The Connolly Column’s costly attack had been in vain.
Pictured: Paddy O'Daire in Pennsylvania, August 1937.
Though the International Brigades offensive in Pennsylvania had gained some ground, it had not even come close to achieving its goal of reaching New York City and linking up with the Ninth Army, and what little ground had been taken had come at a great price. The failure of yet another campaign was causing increasing resentment towards Jack Reed’s leadership amongst the military and the citizens of the CSA, and with the influence of the British, French, and Bharatiyans, Centralism was growing in popularity and political power. William Z. Foster and Earl Browder, the two Centralist leaders, were steadily becoming more powerful, and gaining control over the CSA’s military and internal security.
Pictured: The Pennsylvania Front, August 1937.
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Grim times - but there is some glimmer of hope here and there. The uprisings though are most tiresome for the cause of the Union.
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Feds number seems to be drawn, looking forward to seeing how they might turn this around
I am very much enjoying this story. Here's to hoping you continue on with your work.
Thank you! I'm currently about half way done with the next chapter so I am very much still working in it.
Chapter 9: The Turning Tides
Chapter 9: The Turning Tides
The Fall of the Washington Uprising and the Changing Face of the US Army
The Fall of the Washington Uprising and the Changing Face of the US Army
The disastrous situation for the Federal government in August led to some serious self-reflection by the United States Army. The only army that had held its ground in the face of enemy attack had been the Army of the Colorado in its fight against the Army of Texas in Colorado and New Mexico thanks in part to two major advantages. The first advantage of the successful use of anti-tank guns to blunt Longist armored and motorized attacks in New Mexico and Arizona. General Malin Craig had noticed this trend and had advised the government to invest in more anti-tank guns for the Army. The other key advantage the Army of the Colorado had held was its substantial number of Native American volunteers from Arizona and New Mexico, whose communication in their native languages had confused enemy intelligence and prevented the Longists from decrypting communications. The usefulness of these languages had not gone unnoticed by high command. On August 27th, 1937, the commander of the Western Front, General Malin Craig, ordered that teams of Native American soldiers be trained as communications operators and dispersed across the entire front. This move crippled rebel decryption of Federal communications on the Western Front for the duration of the war. Further boosting Federal intelligence and counterintelligence, OSS Agent Hamilton Bee had also infiltrated General Butler’s command. He had managed to seduce a female officer in General Butler’s staff after convincing her he was a committed Syndicalist and had gained access to the classified information she handled.
Pictured: White House memo on McNair's recommendation.
Pictured: Comanche Code Talkers in the Army of the Colorado.
Pictured: White House Memo regarding Codetalkers.
Pictured: Declassified OSS file on Hamilton Bee's Infiltration of Butler's High Command.
Despite the new communication system, and the infiltration of the Syndicalist high command, the Federal position on the Western Front was still tenuous. The Syndicalist First Army was making rapid gains in Minnesota and Iowa (thanks in part to tanks from the French Commune), while the Army of Arkansas had entered Iowa from the South. The Southern flank of the Army of the Mississippi was once again in danger of being cut off and wiped out. On September 2nd, Syndicalist forces captured Minneapolis after heavy fighting and finally secured the entire length of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and were poised to shift South, threatening to cut off fourteen Federal divisions in Iowa. General Truscott, still severely wounded from the Battle of St. Paul, ordered his army to abandon Iowa as quickly as possible. In an incredibly risky operation, six divisions in Southeast Iowa withdrew to Des Moines, with the battered 34th “Sandstorm” Infantry Division acting as a rearguard and holding off attacks from both the Syndicalists and Longists long enough for the entire force to make it safely back to Des Moines. Though the divisions avoided being encircled and wiped out, they could not prevent an aggressive offensive by the Army of Arkansas from capturing Des Moines on September 7th when the 18th (Arkansas) Volunteers and the 31st “Dixie” Division routed the exhausted 34th Infantry Division and the local 31st (Iowa) Volunteer Division.
Pictured: French Char B1 used in the Minneapolis.
It was clear that the Army of the Mississippi could not hold such a long frontline against two separate enemies much longer. General Craig needed General Krueger to crush the Washington Uprising as quickly as possible or there was a serious risk of the entire Western Front collapsing. As Des Moines fell in the East, the Army of the Columbia launched another determined offensive against the Eighth Army in Washington. On September 7th, the Army of the Columbia renewed its attack into Eastern Washington, concentrating on a pincer maneuver from the East and the West along the banks of the Snake River. The 40th (Oregon) Volunteer Infantry Division and the 50th (California) Volunteer Infantry Division attacked from the West, while the 41st “Sunset” Division attacked from the East. Opposing them was “Felix Baran” Red Guard Division. The “Felix Baran” Division had a nearly impossible task at hand. Spread out across one-hundred-fifty square kilometers , and by now running out of supplies due to the “Joe Hill” Division’s failure to take the port of Seattle, they were easily swept aside by the overwhelming artillery and air support of the Federal attack, with the exception of a company of Red Guards that managed to hold the steep bluffs of Devil’s Canyon and repulse three heavy assaults by the 40th (Oregon) Volunteer Infantry while survivors from the rest of the division crossed the Snake River and retreated to the South. The heroic company held its ground for four days, acting as a rearguard for its division until the 41st “Sunset” Division arrived on its flank. After an intense three-hour artillery barrage, the “Sunsetters” and the 40th (Oregon) Volunteers launched a final attack, overwhelming what remained of the company. It had been nearly wiped out to a man. Only three survivors were taken prisoner. The rest of the “Felix Baran” Division had retreated South to the Oregon Butte, where they, along with four other cut off Red Guard divisions hoped to make a defiant last stand.
Pictured: The Washington Front, September 1937.
The Eighth Army had been cut in half. The tattered remains of five divisions, now under the command of the Californian radio expert who had been so instrumental to the Syndicalist cause, General James Patrick Murphy, dug into the Oregon Butte as food and ammo began to dwindle. Four other divisions under the direct command of General Carter held from Spokane to the Colville National Forest along the Canadian border where Red Guards hid amongst the dense pine trees to avoid the USAAC’s prowling BT dive bombers. There was little the Second Continental Army back in the Red Belt could do to help the Eighth Army. General Butler, in a futile attempt to help relieve pressure on the Eighth Army, ordered the First and Second armies to attack and advance as far as possible. Their motorized offensive proved to be successful, pushing the Army of the Mississippi back into the Dakotas, but the Federal troops managed to maintain a frontline and slow the Syndicalist advance on the banks of the Sheyenne River in North Dakota and the Big Sioux River in South Dakota. In Washington, General Krueger knew he had won. It would only be a matter of time before the Eighth Army began to starve and would have to surrender, yet the situation on the Western Front was looking grim, and the troops of the Army of the Columbia were desperately needed in the Dakotas and Nebraska to hold back the Syndicalist and Longist tides.
Pictured: The Eighth Army split in half.
On September 25th, the Army of the Columbia once again renewed its offensive, this time concentrating on Spokane and the Syndicalists in the Colville National Forest. On September 27th Federal forces drove the “Thomas Tracy” Red Guard Division from Spokane, Washington, pushing all remaining Syndicalist forces in the North into the Colville National Forest. Cut off and running low on supplies, General Carter personally led a last attempted breakout at the head of the “Tom Mooney” Red Guard Division on September 29th. During the assault he proved his valor on the field of combat when he knocked out two machine gun nests of the 39th (Oregon) Volunteer Division that were pinning down his comrades by overrunning them with grenades and his bayonet. While he was leading an assault on a third machine gun nest, he was shot and wounded five times (once in each arm, once in his side, breaking his ribs, and once in the left thigh) but was dragged to safety by his comrades. On September 30th, with his attempted breakout unsuccessful and his food and ammunition supply exhausted, General Edward Carter Jr. surrendered the five divisions in the Colville pocket to General Krueger. General Krueger was reported to have requested a personal meeting with the severely wounded Carter to express his admiration for Carter’s actions during the battle, and offered him the best medical care the Army of the Columbia had as a sign of his respect.
After reorganizing the Army of the Columbia to face off against the remaining Syndicalist pocket in the South who were also running dangerously low on supplies, General Krueger reached out to General Murphy and demanded his surrender. General Murphy feared that his capture would cripple the encrypted radio system he had worked so hard to develop for the Syndicalist cause. During the negotiations, he destroyed all of the documents and equipment related to the radio network before he finally agreed to surrender on October 2nd, allowing his now starving troops a chance to survive. Knowing that he could not fall into enemy hands, he took his own life with his service revolver as the rest of his troops marched out to meet the Federal forces with their hands in the air.
With the Eighth Army defeated, the Army of the Columbia was disbanded and the bulk of its forces were sent East to join reserve units of the Army of the Colorado and the Army of the Mississippi into the newly formed Army of the Missouri. General Krueger, now a hero for crushing the Eighth Army and ending the Syndicalist threat to the Pacific Northwest, was given command. The Army of the Missouri was ordered to the Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa fronts to help alleviate the other two overstretched Federal armies, one of which was barely holding its crumbling frontlines. The Army of the Missouri would take its place on the front on November 11th, relieving divisions from the Army of the Mississippi who shifted North to reinforce the thin line holding onto the prairie in the Dakotas as temperatures there began to plummet.
Pictured: The New Mexico/Colorado Front, December 1937.
Pictured: The Dakota Front, December 1937.
Pictured: The Army of the Missouri in Nebraska.
Pictured: Map of the US in October, 1937.
The victory in the Pacific Northwest inspired the Olson administration to push for political reform, especially for the rights of minorities and women. The NAACP had backed Olson in the election of ‘36 and had inspired hundreds of thousands of Black Americans to fight for the Federal government. After the start of the war, they had begun a new “Double Victory” campaign against both the enemies of the Federal government, and against racism (especially after dark rumors began to spread about atrocities happening in Longist controlled parts of the country.) On October 7th, Olson issued an executive order declaring the Double Victory campaign an official goal of the Federal government.
Pictured: White House memo on the Double V Campaign.
Now that the Federal government had secured the Pacific Northwest it had attracted the attention of several foreign governments who had previously stayed neutral in the conflict. On October 22nd, Austria announced that it was supporting the legitimate government of the United States and sent an elite Tyrolian mountain division from the Imperial-Royal Landwehr, the Kaiserschützen, to support the United States. Austria also sent shipments of rifles, machine guns, trucks, and artillery to help counter Russian, German, and Syndicalist influence in the Civil War. The exiled French Republic in North Africa soon followed Austria’s lead, sending tanks, trucks, and rifles on November 1st. The Germans responded by ramping up their attempts to weaken the United States by inviting the secessionists in Hawaii into the Reichspakt and offering their protection on October 27th. For the time, there was little the Federal government could do to punish Germany for its repeated forays against American interests.
Pictured: White House memo regarding Austrian support.
Pictured: White House memo regarding Hawaii joining the Reichspakt.
Pictured: White House memo regarding support from the French Republic.
Diplomatically, and on the ground, the US was still in trouble even after its recent victories. The air war, however, was a much different story in October 1937. Though the Federal government had been dominating on nearly every front except in Pennsylvania, the USAAC had been suffering from a chronic shortage of trained pilots since the outbreak of the war when nearly half of its pilots had defected to the other two sides of the Civil War. There was a fear that the Second Continental Army Air Corps (SCAAC), now bolstered by French and British planes that had arrived in New York with the fall of the city, would begin to turn the tide in other areas as well (such as the Dakota Front where the USAAC’s air superiority was the only thing preventing a total Syndicalist breakthrough.) Transport pilots and civilian pilots had quickly been moved to combat missions but still there were not nearly enough as were needed. Some members of congress had backed a movement by famed American female pilots Amelia Earhart and Jacqueline Cochran to allow women to fly for the USAAC. They pointed to the CSA, who had been successfully using female pilots since the outbreak of the war, and to the famous “Red Witches'' squadron which was responsible for seventy-six confirmed losses of Federal and Longist aircraft by this point in the war. On October 19th, Congress voted to approve the use of female pilots by the USAAC. President Olson signed the bill into law the next day, allowing tens of thousands of female volunteers to join the Air Corps.
Pictured: Map of the air war over the United States, October 1937.
Pictured: White House memo regarding the WASP Vote in Congress.
Pictured: WASPs.
Bolstered by its new female pilots, the USAAC launched an ambitious operation to target the industrial power of Chicago. Since the start of the war, Federal B-17s and B-18s had been bombing industrial cities in Pennsylvania and Ohio to hamper the Syndicalist war effort, but Chicago had not yet been touched due to the distances involved which would prevent fighter escorts from protecting the bombers. Boeing had advertised that its heavy bombers, bristling with .50 machine guns, did not need fighter escorts. After some lobbying in Congress who in turn pressured the USAAC, General Henry H. Arnold, commander of the USAAC on the Eastern Front, agreed to begin strategic bombing runs against Chicago itself. At 0430 hours on October 22nd, two-hundred B-17s of the 2nd Bombardment Group took off from Langley Field Airbase in Virginia. From there, they travelled across the Great Lakes and Ontario (part of an agreement with Canada to help hasten the demise of the Syndicalists in the Red Belt) then across the Great Lakes and Michigan and on to Chicago.
Pictured: WASP pilot Nancy Love preparing for the mission against Chicago.
Their mission on the first sortie to Chicago was to destroy Chicago Airport, the Western Electric Company building, and Diamond T Motor Company factory in the Southwest of the city. All three were important to the Syndicalist War effort. At 0807 hours, the 2nd Bombardment Group cleared the cloud cover over Lake Michigan and spotted Chicago for the first time. Their flight path over Canada had allowed them to catch the Syndicalist defenders by surprise. Eye witness accounts from Chicago tell of how the deep roar of the bombers’ engines was the first sign of impending danger. Air raid sirens began to blare and civilians quickly went indoors while SCA gunners manned anti-aircraft batteries and the SCAAC scrambled fighters to intercept. It was too late for the industrial districts and the Chicago Airport however. As flak burst in the air around the Federal bombers, hundreds of incendiary bombs tumbled out of the B-17s onto the capital of the Combined Syndicates, completely destroying their targets and the surrounding area. A few SCAAC fighters managed to scramble before the bombs fell on Chicago Airport (though nearby Ashburn Airport was able to launch its squadron of P-36s to defend the city.) As Southwest Chicago burned, the small handful of Syndicalist fighters raced up to challenge the Federal bombers. General Arnold had gambled on the B-17’s reputation as flying fortresses that could fend off fighter attacks without an escort. This proved to be a costly mistake. Though there were only a few Red fighters, they raked the bombers with machine gun fire as they passed by, downing eighteen bombers while only losing two of their own to the B-17s turrets. A further seven B-17s were downed by Syndicalist anti-aircraft fire.
Pictured: B-17s fly through heavy Syndicalist AA fire over Chicago, October 1937.
Despite the heavy losses over Chicago, General Arnold considered the mission to be a strategic, as well as a morale victory, and the US Press seemed to have generally agreed. The USAAC had shown that even Chicago, deep behind enemy lines, was not safe, and the dwindling supplies, and manufacturing of the Combined Syndicates were slowly being whittled away. Bombing raids against Chicago and other cities in the Red Belt would steadily increase throughout the rest of the war, and even the farthest flung Syndicalist cities came into the sights of Federal air power.
By November on the Eastern Front, the stalemate and trench warfare had led to little territorial change all the way from the shores of Lake Erie, to the swamps of Southeast Virginia. The Army of the Delaware had held back a fierce assault from the International Brigades in late August, and little had changed since then. From Maryland, along the Shenandoah River through Virginia, then down to the border of North Carolina, the Army of the Potomac had held a V-shaped portion of the frontline, but as more and more volunteer divisions were mobilized in New England, a new army, the Army of the Shenandoah under the command of General John C. H. Lee, was deployed to the border of West Virginia, allowing the Army of the Potomac to concentrate its forces on North Carolina. Despite the reinforcements on the border, General Moseley ordered General Ridgeway to launch another offensive against the Army of the Potomac, hoping to drive the Federal Army out of Virginia and threaten Washington DC. Unlike previous offensives, the Army of North Carolina now had leased German and Russian armor and air support, and Moseley was confident this, along with the Syndicalist Uprising in New York, would break the stalemate on the Eastern Front. On November 21st, Longist air and artillery units began a fierce bombardment on Federal trenches, followed by two massive armored and infantry pushes towards Lynchburg in the West, and Petersburg in the East. Overwhelming numbers of Federal fighters scrambled to cover the Army of the Potomac, shooting down dozens of Longist aircraft. By November 24th, the United States once again ruled the skies over Virginia. Nevertheless, the introduction of German and Russian armor allowed the Army of North Carolina to break through Federal trenches in Western Virginia. On December 1st, German light tanks operated by the Longist 63rd Cavalry Division entered Lynchburg. The attack towards Petersburg was less successful, however. The dense forests of Southeastern Virginia allowed the Army of the Potomac to successfully ambush armored thrusts towards the city until the offensive was finally called off on December 14th and the frontlines became static across Virginia once again.
Pictured: The Pennsylvania/Maryland/West Virginia Front, November 1937.
Pictured: The Virginia Front in November 1937.
In New York, the Army of the Hudson under General Eisenhower continued to press its attack against the Ninth Army. On November 19th, the Army of the Hudson launched an offensive across the entire front with the goal of driving the Syndicalists back into Long Island and rescuing the besieged cadets at West Point (who were now running low on supplies after withstanding Syndicalist assaults for two and a half months.) Eisenhower, once again leading from the front with his 3rd Infantry Division, pushed the “Solunsky” Red Guard Division off of Butter Hill on Thanksgiving Day, November 25th, 1937. Eisenhower and the 3rd Infantry Division shared Thanksgiving feasts with the relieved and famished cadets, and once again, Eisenhower was a national hero.
Pictured: The Army of the Hudson driving the Ninth Army back into NYC, November 1937.
Throughout the first half of December, the Army of the Hudson pushed the Ninth Army back until it was bottled up in Manhattan and Long Island. It was clear that it would not be long until the Stars and Stripes once again flew over New York City. The defeat of the Eight Army in Washington, and now the imminent defeat of the Ninth Army in New York had caught the attention of the Canadian and British-exile government they hosted. The Entente had been ramping up its support of the US war effort by increasing arms shipments and sending advisors to teach the inexperienced American soldiers the lessons they had learned so dearly in the First Weltkrieg, but now King Edward VIII was confident that a Canadian Intervention could play a decisive role in the war with little risk to Canada itself.
Canadian diplomats met President Olson in secret on December 13th and began to negotiate terms for Canadian intervention in the America Civil War. Edward VIII promised “total military and economic support for the Federal government until the rebels have been crushed” in exchange for an American guarantee to support future Entente efforts to retake the British Isles from Mosley who had been supplying the American Syndicalists. President Olson, worried about the state of the Western Front and desperate to end the war as quickly as possible, agreed. Canadian forces began to secretly build up along the Northern border of Minnesota and Michigan, preparing to stamp out the Red Menace in the Americas once and for all.
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Even though things are mostly still in a stalemate things are starting to look up for America as the Longist and Syndicalist forces are being pushed back and possible Canadian intervention.
All the Federals need do now is topple the dominoes, looking forward to the next segment!
Things are indeed looking up for the Feds, though me thinks it's going to be a long while before the CSA and the AUS are defeated. That secret meeting with Canada is interesting, a sign of things to come perhaps?
Chapter 10: Friends in the North
Chapter 10: Friends in the North
The Liberation of New York and the Canadian Intervention
As the Civil War grinded on throughout the United States in December of 1937, freshly arrived Federal troops from the Pacific Northwest began to make a difference on the beleaguered Western Front. The frontline in the Dakotas and Nebraska was constantly shifting, and gaps in the front lines allowed territory to change hands frequently. The new divisions from the now disbanded Army of the Columbia had allowed General Truscott to plug the gaps in his line. His opponents in the First Army were beginning to run low on supplies and were slowed by the heavy snowfall. General Cannon’s offensive into the Dakotas became bogged down on the frozen prairie, as his prized motorized divisions had their trucks’ fuel supplies freeze in the cold temperatures. The CSA overall, cut off from access to the sea, was running short on resources. Fuel supplies were dwindling, and the Second Continental Army Air Corps had been forced to run sorties every other day to preserve what little remained. To make matters worse, the lack of access to the sea and the Federal bombing campaigns against the Red Belt had crippled the Syndicalist’s industry. Morale in Syndicalist territory was quickly plummeting, causing rifts to form between the political factions in Chicago.The Liberation of New York and the Canadian Intervention
The two Centralist factions, under William Foster and Earl Browder, began to publish criticisms of Jack Reed and the Unionist faction in newspapers aligned with their cause, accusing Reed of failing to centralize the military and production, a charge which they claimed had led to the dire circumstances they now found themselves in. They demanded that Reed disband Federalist and Unionist militias and place them directly under command of the Second Continental Army which the Centralists had been gradually increasing their control of with help from the Totalist leadership of their international allies, France and Britain. The Centralists also accused the Federalists of weakening the revolution and pointed to anecdotes about Federalist militiamen trading goods with Federal troops, especially on the Pennsylvania Front where the two opposing sides had been stuck in their trenches, sometimes no more than thirty meters apart, for months. The Centralist-led CSB began quietly arresting Federalist leaders on murky grounds, and some Centralist commanders demoted officers suspected of Federalist sympathies. Together, Browder and Foster had enough power to seize control of the Red Belt, but despite their close ideologies, a complete Centralist takeover was impossible due to their intense rivalry with each other.
With the increased pressure against them, the Federalist faction increasingly viewed Jack Reed as being no better than the Federal government or Long, calling him “a tyrant like any other but with a red and black flag.” The Federalists who had believed the revolution had been against centralization and authoritarianism, now found themselves in the sights of their own sides’ security apparatus. Desertion rates slowly increased across the front, and in one instance, an entire Federalist battalion deserted to the Loyalist side after the CSB attempted to arrest several of their officers. The tense political situation in the CSA did not go unnoticed by the OSS. The lack of supplies and internal tensions were soon brought up to General Truscott, who, in a stunning reversal of the situation a few months earlier, realized he had a strong upper hand against the First Army in the Dakotas. On December 13th, 1937, the same day Canada secretly agreed to intervene in the Second American Civil War, General Truscott and the Army of the Mississippi launched a counteroffensive in the Dakotas. General Cannon’s First Army, suffering from supply problems with food, ammunition, and fuel, suffered a defeat in the outskirts of Bismarck which had been under siege since October. The size and the ferocity of the Federal attack overwhelmed the Syndicalist forces across the Dakotas, and they were slowly driven through the snow all the way back across the border into Minnesota before CSB commissars were able to halt their retreat on January 15th by threatening to fire upon them if they retreated any further. The OSS, sensing blood in the water, increased its attention to the ever-growing list of problems the Syndicalists faced in Minnesota. On January 11th, it established a radio intercept group in Pierre, South Dakota to listen in on Syndicalist communications from Chicago and across the Western Front. On February 9th, OSS agent Walter Rodes was sent to Minneapolis to gather intelligence for the upcoming joint Federal/Canadian offensive. There he met with the notorious gangster, Kid Cann, who had long been rumored to have had ties with President Olson. Cann promised that his organization would work behind the lines to cripple the Syndicalist war effort in Minnesota in exchange for total amnesty for all the crimes he had committed during Prohibition. The OSS eagerly agreed to the deal and Cann began his campaign of sabotage and assassination against the Syndicalists in preparation for the coming offensive.
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Pictured: The Dakota Front, January 1938.
Back on the Eastern Front, the Siege of New York City had continued through Christmas, when the fighting had died down and Federal and Syndicalist soldiers had reportedly sung Christmas carols across the frontlines with each other. In scenes reminiscent of the Christmas Truce of the Weltkrieg, some units played baseball between the lines, and shared Christmas presents with each other. Most of the units on both sides were from New York and New England, and many of the soldiers had friends and family on the other side who they asked for or met. The truce wouldn’t last long, however. Eisenhower had his sights set on New York City, and he was determined to liberate the city by the New Year. On December 26th, the Army of the Hudson launched a major offensive towards the East River, with the goal of crossing it and cutting off a substantial portion of the Ninth Army in Manhattan itself. The 26th “Yankee” Infantry Division managed to capture the partially completed Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and the 14th (New York) Volunteer Infantry Division captured Fort Schuyler after engaging the “Frederick Douglass” Red Guard Division in close quarters fighting on December 29th. General Katine’s forces in New York City were at risk of being trapped in the city. General Eisenhower, sensing his chance, sent the 9th Infantry Division attacking down the peninsula, capturing Harlem and Washington Heights amidst the war-torn ruins of the neighborhoods, and threatening to wipe out the Syndicalists in the city. General Katine realized he could not hold New York. Leaving the “Liberty Guard” Division, an elite division equipped with heavy French weaponry including artillery and six CharB1S tanks, as a rearguard. The Liberty Guard held off for three days against five Federal divisions, in brutal house-to-house and hand-to-hand fighting, allowing the rest of the Ninth Army to withdraw to Long Island. On January 1st, 1938, soldiers of the 26th “Yankee” Division captured the East end of the Brooklyn Bridge, cutting off the Liberty Guard. Running low on ammunition and manpower, the remnants of the exhausted and decimated Liberty Guard surrendered. They had held against overwhelming firepower for three days through the streets of Manhattan to allow the Ninth Army to withdraw, yet in the end, it would all be in vain. The Ninth Army was running out of supplies in the cold winter of January 1938 and was suffering from high rates of desertion and casualties to frostbite. The US Navy and Army Air Corps battered them nonstop for three weeks before the Army of the Hudson launched a last offensive into Long Island on January 20th, obliterating the hapless Syndicalists. General Benjamin Katine and the last six divisions of the Ninth Army dug in in the Hamptons surrendered to General Eisenhower on January 24th. Eisenhower was, for the third time during the Second Civil War, a national hero. The triumphant Army of the Hudson paraded through war-torn Times Square as the Stars and Stripes were raised over the city, while in Chicago, President Reed declared a national day of mourning throughout the Red Belt. With the Syndicalist threat in New England crushed, the Army of the Hudson was redeployed to the Pennsylvania Front for the upcoming offensive to take Pittsburgh.
Pictured: The Ninth Army is overrun on Long Island, January 24th, 1938.
President Olson was ecstatic that the two coastal uprisings had been crushed and the ports of the Pacific Northwest and New England were once again firmly under the control of the Federal government. The Syndicalists had been dealt two crushing blows, and the upcoming Canadian Intervention gave him hope that the Reds would soon be defeated. The Longists, on the other hand, had been building up their military power and still posed a major threat on the Western Front. Reinforcements from the Pacific Northwest had changed the makeup of the Western Front and given the Army of the Colorado much needed relief, and the new Army of the Missouri had finally managed to contain the Longist advance in the Great Plains. On January 24th, 1938, both armies launched offensives against the AUS.
The Army of the Colorado began a major artillery barrage along the banks of the Pecos River and in the Southwest corner of Colorado against the Army of Texas at 0400 on January 24th. The Army of Texas, and its attached Brazilian allies of the Legião Verde, were well entrenched and the barrage, though intense, failed to disorganize the Southerners as well as General Harding had hoped. When the mostly Californian Federal troops began their assault, they faced heavy machine gun and artillery fire. The war in the Southwest, a mobile fight early in the war, was beginning to resemble the Western Front of the Weltkrieg just as the Eastern Front of the Second American Civil War had since the beginning of the conflict. On February 7th, facing heavy casualties, General Harding coordinated with General Doolittle, the commander of the USAAC on the Western Front, to increase close air support operations in Colorado. The increased air support from Doolittle’s B-18 Bolos and BT dive bombers gave the Army of Colorado the advantage it needed, and the Longists were finally pushed from the Southeast corner of Colorado on February 11th and Federal troops even managed to push into Kansas. With Colorado now entirely in Federal hands, General Harding shifted divisions to New Mexico, finally breaking the stalemate at the Pecos River. Using Apache, Zuni, and Navajo scouts, the third (New Mexico) Volunteer Cavalry slipped through Longist lines along the Canadian River and cut the Army of Texas’s supply lines to the 10th Silver Legion holding the right flank. A combined attack from the 5th and 49th (California) volunteer divisions finally drove the 10th Silver Legion from its positions on February 15th and began attacking the Brazilian Legião Verde’s right flank. Having driven back the Army of Texas’s right flank, the Army of the Colorado renewed their assault across the Pecos River across the front, shattering the Longist and Brazilian frontlines and driving them back into Texas.
Pictured: California Volunteers on the New Mexico Front, January 1938.
Pictured: Colorado Frontlines at the start of the January Offensive, 1938.
Pictured: The Army of the Colorado enters Kansas, February 1938.
Pictured: Start of the January Offensive, January 24th, 1938.
Pictured: Frontlines at the end of the January Offensive, February 27th, 1938.
To the North of the Western Front, General Krueger and the Army of the Missouri launched their first offensive against the Army of Oklahoma and the Army of Arkansas in Nebraska. The Nebraska Front was far from secure, and like the Dakota Front to the North, there were gaps in the lines that could be easily exploited by cavalry and motorized units in the summertime. However, as the Army of Arkansas was pushed back towards Nebraska, the elite German Legion Schwarzer Adler was brought up to the front. Positions around Omaha were heavily fortified and reinforced by the Legion Schwarzer Adler and heavy snowfall had clogged the roads, hampering trucks and horses. The fighting in the deep snow of the Great Plains proved to be a hellish ordeal for both sides, with freezing temperatures causing more casualties than the fighting itself. The conditions slowed the Federal attack on Omaha where the Legion Schwarzer Adler fought tooth and nail. The city of Omaha would not fall until February 11th when the Federal 41st “Sunsetter” Infantry Division, with overwhelming air support from General Doolittle’s USAAC, threatened to surround Omaha, forcing the Legion Schwarzer Adler to retreat. As the Germans withdrew through the snow, they suffered severe losses from American dive bombers that left the roads of Nebraska covered in burnt out vehicles and dead bodies. By February 14th, the Army of the Missouri had pushed the Longists back across the Platte River. By February 27th, the Army of the Missouri had reached the Kansas border in Western Nebraska and had begun their assault on Lincoln in an attempt to drive the Army of Oklahoma out of Nebraska once and for all.
Pictured: The January Offensive in Nebraska, January 1938
Pictured: Members of the Legion Schwarzer Adler in the snow-covered plains around Omaha Nebraska, February 1938.
Pictured: The Nebraskan Front at the end of the January Offensive, February 1938.
Pictured: Destroyed German vehicles after the Legion Schwarzer Adler retreated from Omaha, Nebraska, February 1938.
After the loss of the Washington Uprising, and now the New York Uprising, Jack Reed began falling into a state of depression. Further compounding Reed’s ever-growing list of problems were intelligence reports that Canada was building up its forces on the borders of Minnesota and Michigan. Fortunately for Syndicalists, General Robert Hale Merriman had been left with the Seventh Army along the Canadian border since the beginning of the war and had spent the entire year fortifying it in the event of a Canadian intervention. Reed pulled himself together and flew to Detroit to personally inspect the defenses himself where he met with General Merriman who assured him that under no circumstances would the Canadians take Michigan.
Pictured: Canadian and British-exile high command preparing for the Intervention.
On February 27th, Reed’s worst fears were realized. King Edward VIII, in a speech before the Canadian parliament, denounced Syndicalism as “a threat to the liberty of the free world,” pointing to atrocities committed by Totalists against their enemies, and declared that the remnants of the British Empire were committed to fighting Syndicalism wherever it was “whether at home in the British Isles, or across the border here in Canada where it is ravaging our American cousins.” At the same time, Entente troops, which had secretly been gathering in Canada from across the world, began a heavy artillery barrage on Detroit and Northern Minnesota which would last until March 4th. When the barrage ceased, forty-four divisions, mostly French Republican, and Canadian, began their attack. General Merriman’s defensive preparations around Detroit withstood the attack. He had been preparing for this day since the start of the conflict, and his trench networks utilizing a defense-in-depth strategy cost the attacking Entente troops dearly, especially around Detroit, though Entente made marginal gains in Northern Minnesota and North Dakota, advancing as far South as the town of Beaver Bay on Lake Superior and Grand Forks in North Dakota. Syndicalist troops on other fronts fared less well when the United States opened up offensives of its own in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia to support the Canadian attack on March 4th. The Second Continental Army fought bravely across the Red Belt, but a sense of hopelessness was taking a toll on the psyche of many within the Consolidated Syndicates of America.
Pictured: Canadian Black Watch in Grand Forks, North Dakota, March 1938.
Pictured: Minnesota Front with Canadian advances, March 1938.
Pictured: Virginia Front, March 1938.
Pictured: West Virginia Front, March 1938.
Pictured: Pennsylvania Front, March 1938.
By March 18th, 1938, three weeks after the Canadian Intervention had begun, and just four days short of the anniversary of the official start of the war, the death toll from the conflict was staggering. The American Union State had taken over 847,000 military casualties. Though successes had been achieved, especially in the central Great Plains, repeated costly offensives in the Southwest and the Eastern Seaboard were bleeding the Longists dry. The Consolidated Syndicates of America had taken over 703,000 military casualties, including the complete annihilation of the Eighth Army in Washington and the Ninth Army in New York, as well as the destruction of most of the Sixth Army in Pennsylvania. The United States had fared marginally better than its enemies, suffering over 519,000 casualties in the first year of the war, though the US had primarily been on the defensive. US Army analysts feared that to win the war and take Chicago and New Orleans, it would cost at least a million more casualties. The new participants in the war had taken heavy losses as well in the three short weeks they had been involved. Canada had suffered just over 7000 losses, mostly in the assault on Detroit, and the French Republic had suffered around 1000 casualties, all trying to drive the Syndicalists out of Detroit, where they had been pitted against their former countrymen, the remnants of the Corps Lafayette, which had been pulled off the Pennsylvania Front to reinforce the Canadian border when it had become clear that Canada was preparing an intervention. Civilian casualties for the three American factions were roughly three times as high as their military ones. A wary and battered America continued to look on as the war raged across the shattered nation, with peace still far beyond the horizon.
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New York liberated, and the Canadians finally intervening. It seems the Federalists are finally gaining the upper hand against the CSA, though time will tell when the Federalists are finally at the gates of Chicago. Same goes for New Orleans in the AUS' case, they got their work cut out for them.
Glad to see you were still waiting. I have no desire to abandon this, and unless my computer is destroyed or my house burns down, I have all the notes and screenshots I need for the whole campaign.
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I'm glad to see another post, I screamed in joy when I saw a new chapter was posted and it is still one of the best AAR's I've read.
Thank you so much for the high praise! I have already started the next chapter too so it should not take as long as this one did.