Chapter 31: Butcher's Bill
In the deep dark lair, of the Nazi Party…
“This is an outrage!” roared the Fuhrer, as he was escorted back to his cell. “The menu clearly stated a ‘Champagne of the Month’, and we were very obviously served Prosecco!”
“Indeed!” Goebbels agreed, as his nurse helped him back into his special jacket. “False advertising. These lies cannot be allowed to continue. Not only are you lying to your guests, but you are lying to yourselves!”
“I had the Crème Brulé for afters,” whined Goering.
“I thought that was actually rather good,” Hitler admitted, and the other Nazis agreed.
“Yes, but I ordered heroin.”
As the various leaders of the Third Reich were left to their bickering in their highly secure and blessedly soundproofed rooms, the staff of what was quickly being referred to as ‘the Zoo’ met with the Warden.
“What’s the verdict?” he asked of the medical team, when they finally returned from their daily task of preventing Hess’ escape attempt.
The various doctors and nurses looked at each other uncertainly before one was shoved forward to be spokesman.
“Well…every single high-ranking member of the Nazi Party seems to be either suffering from various highly debilitating diseases, drug habits, mental illness and trauma, all capped off by poor or downright criminally negligent medical care.”
“They’re all fucking nuts!” someone shouted from the back.
“Quite,” the spokesman said, “but that being said, it has proven difficult to diagnose them all whilst they are detoxing, coming to terms with their defeat in war and…various other things. We are collectively of the opinion that it would be impossible to say which of them were fully sane and lucid most of the time, and those who were batshit crazy for at least the past couple of years, through one method or another.”
The warden massaged his head. “Recommendations?”
“Shoot them!” someone shouted from the back.
“That would be one solution,” the spokesperson said. “It may indeed be the only solution for some of them. If you’re talking long term, I’m uncertain how many will be capable of standing trial on health grounds. They certainly don’t really deserve to have much justice to protect them, but we are supposed to be setting a better example.”
“Buggering fuck,” the Warden said quietly. He’d protested profusely at being assigned this post, but the Joint Allied-Roman Conference at Danzig had been quite firm in creating a multi-national team to…contain…the former German government, whilst the Romans scrambled to try and find someone capable of running a new regime in the war-torn country. It was proving, understandably, difficult. His own job of both trying to stick to medical and legal ethics whilst holding duty of care for both a staff and the worst monsters of the century was…trying.
It would be worse when he would have to recommend, based off medical evidence, to postpone any trial for at least another three months.
…
23rd January 1942
The various leaders of the Roman Empire, their puppets, friends and allies, were seated around a lovely table having a jolly nice tea.
The Reich High Command were in a cage, drinking their yak milk quietly, having worked a day trip out for good behaviour.
“Has the medical team reported back yet? And is that cage really necessary?” Augustus Cheesare inquired quietly to Alan.
Alan thought about it for a moment before turning from the Emperor and looking over to the military end of the table, where the various commanders of the greatest military machine in world history were managing their various crippling drug conditions.
“They’re still trying to figure out some of the cocktails and ‘treatments’ that quack hack handed out, but the gist is almost everyone in the upper circle was either drugged to high heaven, clinically insane or some mixture of both. Most of their remaining troops are suffering from extreme meth withdrawal, those who haven’t committed suicide, are in prison or have gone mad with the things they’ve done.”
“Mmm. So, no German reinforcements anytime soon?”
“Doubtful. The country was teetering on the edge of civil war off and on for a decade before Hitler took over. He has not improved their situation. It’s only us keeping the country together at this point. We may have to split it up into regions if things don’t start improving.”
“Bugger. What about our own efforts?”
Seriously, look how ridiculously small this focus tree is. We're in January 1942 and it's all done.
Alan perked up. “Bean-Counter told me yesterday that we’ve completely finished all our modernisation and improvement programs for the Italian provinces. Our progression is complete, for now. We’re focused on improving and refining our tech, and building up the rest of the Empire to catch up with Italy, France and the Low Countries. To that end we’re about to start a gigantic construction program across the continents, including our vassal and allied states.”
Nothing but this for the rest of the game...
“No domestic issues?”
“Only that we’re struggling to keep up with recruitment for national service. Our armed forces are going to triple in size over the next two years, if these numbers are accurate. We maybe should start thinking about rebuilding our navy, come to think.”
The Emperor shuddered. “Perhaps.”
There was little more in the way of talk until the dishes were clean, the cheese and port were also polished off, and coffee and mingling broke out.
“Ah, General,” the Emperor said, walking over to Catastrophe. “What news from the front?”
The general sipped his coffee and then gestured over to a table with Bean-Counter and various SIM types were playing cards.
“The news from the past month is all relatively the same, as you know. Very little progress made against the Chinese, who have adopted such an elastic defence and vicious counter-attack strategy that the front has moved forwards and backwards over the same few miles for weeks now. We take three men for every two they put down, but the numbers are still relatively even. I can’t see us breaking into their lines without a large amount of air support and more tanks.”
“And Japan?”
Note the many allied and puppet forces helping us out. A pleasant surprise.
“We have closed the pockets and destroyed their puppet armies outside of Korea, though they have actually pushed us back a little from the border. Our air superiority is telling however, they’ve lost 650 thousand men so far, and that’s not counting the 1.7 million they’ve lost fighting the Chinese before and during our war. If we push against Korea, I doubt they can stop us. And I do recommend closing Korea down as a priority. The Americans are all set to send their air force over to the peninsula once we’ve secured it, to start blasting the Home Islands apart. They and the British can also use the ports to interdict any Japanese ships from reaching the mainland, which will make our drive south much easier.”
Basically, massive strikes on the Japanese on all fronts. And hold the line everywhere else.
“Yes, that makes sense. So, after Korea, what then?”
“Our recommendation is to focus on the Chinese coastline. Since the huge Japanese naval landings, they’ve taken over the whole of eastern China and thus, we only have their armies to fight. We push them off the coast and into the interior, they lose all their supplies and reinforcements, whilst trapping their armies in-between us and the Chinese. Once they have been defeated, we can slowly begin closing our jaws of attack from the north and the east around the various Chinese factions. That will be the bloodiest and hardest stage of the war for us, but hopefully our air force will be fully freed from the Japanese at that point to help.”
“Good show. What’s the damage to our forces overall?”
“Roughly 70 thousand dead and wounded. The Allies by contrast have taken over 200 thousand. And the enemy have suffered grievously, as previously mentioned.”
“But our numbers will rise come February and the start of incursions against fully fortified defences,” the Emperor said quietly.
“I’m afraid so, sire.”
“Hmm. I’ll sign off on the attacks along all fronts. Focus on taking out Korea first, and no pressure on the Chinese-facing armies to kill themselves for meaningless gains. Also…you say the Japanese and Koreans have fortified the border?”
“They have.”
“I see. Muster our tanks to the edges of that front and get Colonel Kaboom to see if he can’t roll up the coastline. The Japanese may hold up most of our army in the centre, but if we can advance along a narrow front and even briefly disrupt port control…”
“Yes…it would be worth it. I’ll assign him myself. Crazy bastard will love the idea, I’m sure.”
“Oh and before I forget, any updates on the British offensive and defence of India?”
“Ah, well they have indeed lost a great many men fighting in the mountains and jungles of Burma and Indochina. However, they have also managed to push the Japanese back, reclaiming over half the colony from them. It seems their empire is very much on the ball and taking no risks when it comes to their own territories.”
No fall of Singapore in this timeline. Well...not at the hands of Japan anyway...
“Very good. I suppose. Keep me updated on their actions and movements.”
“Of course, Mighty Cheesare. Anything else?”
“No that should be everything. Tell the SIM chaps I need to see them again for a quick meeting when convenient. Nothing to worry about. Splendid dinner, what?”
