Chapter Forty-Six: They Did WHAT!?
(1-14 December 1944)
Posters for the wartime US Presidential Election of 1944. Roosevelt was attempting a comeback against Wendell Willkie, who had led the US into the war against the Allies
=
==
==
==
US Election – 7 November 1944
Unreported in the last chapter, the US had held its presidential election on (presumably) 7 November 1944 (the OTL date). In a result that surprised many, the American electorate punished President Willkie for dragging the US into war against the Allies, which the Czechs had joined just three days before.
[No announcement about this and didn’t check at the time, so I only discovered the change of President when I checked the US diplomacy page later in December, for reasons that become obvious below.]
However, the change in leadership had made no difference to the war, which continued as it had done before. Norway had then joined the Allies on 9 November, followed by Mexico on the 20th. Roosevelt had inherited a war that had spread to two fronts within two weeks of his election
[of course, the HOI mechanic has him taking power immediately, rather than the long transitional period the US had in OTL]. Though Canada was by now in dire trouble.
=======
Polish Air Force Report as at 30 November 1944
As the month of December 1944 started, the Polish Air Force presented a summary of its own deployed aircraft holdings (many were being kept in reserve stocks for now) and Allied air deployments in Asia.
Both the Western China and Qinghai air zones had around 150 TAC bombers (including an RAF wing) conducting ground support missions, with mission efficiency high in Qinghai (generally closer to its targets) than in Western China, where some of the bombers were still operating from Urumqi. Japan provided air superiority for the MAB over Manchuria, when that zone was active, while France did so in South East Asia.
=======
1-5 December 1944: Dark Days
On 1 December, the Allied Far East Command provided an intelligence estimate of relative naval strengths in the Asian Theatre. If these figures were to be believed, the MAB (primarily the Japanese Peoples Navy) held naval supremacy throughout the region.
On land, the last border skirmishes in Manchuria were still tapering off after the ceasefire, with a couple of battles in progress in both Western China and Indochina.
At home in Poland, two new militia divisions were deployed into General Marian Kukiel’s 3rd Army, now stationed in north-east Poland. The new formations were sent to join them: the Polish High Command had decided the situation in Canada was too precarious for an intervention.
In Mexico, there was already a significant Allied presence. And to make a real difference there, it may be necessary for an entire Army to be sent: a risk Poland was not willing to take with the Soviet threat still extant.
In Asia, the main battle during the first few days of December was resolved in the North Tonkin Coast, where the Allies successfully repelled another strong MAB attack on the morning of 2 December (Allies 640, MAB 1,730 killed).
In Western Canada, the Allies no longer held a port on the continental West Coast and the one corridor to the coast there was precariously held, given the number of divisions stuck inland from it. This presented a significant vulnerability for encirclement and surrender.
The US invasion of Newfoundland continued, with another American division joining in. But the Allies in this case were still holding on strongly.
But in eastern Canada the situation had deteriorated. The American landing north-west of Halifax, where they had captured a port, was being reinforced and now contained an entire corps of US Army divisions.
Speaking of Halifax, it was now the new provisional capital of Canada – which meant that Montréal had finally fallen to the enemy. And by 3 December, the long-feared Canadian capitulation occurred.
This left the remaining Allied combatants even more isolated in pockets in western, central and eastern Canada, where a provisional administration still operated out of Halifax, though with no Canadian troops left in the field.
In the north-east, by the evening of the 4th three distinct pockets had formed. The largest was west of Quebec, where 19 Allied divisions were trapped, with no port access as Quebec had been lost on the capitulation (though not yet garrisoned by the US).
Another 14 divisions were trapped along the St Lawrence and to the south-east, again now without any port access. Finally, there were currently just three divisions defending the Halifax area, which had been cut off from the rest by an American lodgement on the isthmus connecting the new Free Canadian capital from the rest.
In the west of Canada, by early on the 5th 26 divisions were now trapped, with a couple more off shore in Victoria, which had a port to service it. Finally, 18 more Allied division were encircled in the centre, unsupplied and under attacks which they were losing.
In total, up to 77 remaining Allied divisions were in danger of destruction in the mess that the Canadian Expedition had become.
A small piece of good news came later that morning, with the defeat of the American invasion of Newfoundland. Over in Western China, a decreased number of smaller battles had been fought. The South Africans had held East Jiuquan after the Poles had been forced to retreat at the end of November. A they now headed back to the rear for much needed resupply and reinforcement, the mainly recovered 18 DP was sent up to help their comrades.
In Guyana, the French were trying to retake Paramaribo, but the cross-river assault was not going well and would ultimately fail.
6-11 December 1944: Pandemonium
A little over two days after the Canadian surrender, the situation in Mexico was largely quiet. The heavy concentration of Allied forces in the north-west seemed unwilling to attack the consistent but relatively thin US lines in front of them. Just one battle was in progress, a US attempt to cross the Rio Grande in the centre.
In Asia, the last week had seen very few battles resolved involving Polish troops. After a couple of small defensive battles were won in Gannan on the 2nd, the only other battle results had been on the North Tonkin Coast, where the Allies had repulsed four MAB assaults from 2-6 December in which a total 990 Allied and about 4,650 MAB troops had fallen.
On 8 December, General Manteuffel was trying to execute a breakout along the St Lawrence from the Quebec pocket after the Allies had failed to secure the port of Québec before the Americans had occupied it.
Another two attacks had been defeated in Tonkin in the last couple of days, now the only action involving Polish troops in Asia for over a week. The MAB were certainly determined to take it!
By the afternoon of 9 December, Manteuffel’s breakout had failed and the US had reached the south bank of the St Lawrence, creating another smaller pocket to its west, where the Belgian defenders were about to be defeated, further isolating the Québec Pocket from possible relief or escape.
The situation in western and central Canada was not greatly changed: hanging on in slowly deepening desperation, without any mainland port to enable resupply.
The Mexican Front was becoming more active now, with more Allied attacks, those in the far south-east of the line showing the most promise.
The creeping doom in eastern Canada continued on 10 December, made worse by the build-up of even more forces in the US lodgement in the rear of the forces that had been defending the St Lawrence so stoically over the last few months.
In the west, by the 11th the last Allied coastal foothold had just been lost and, though a counter-attack was being launched, its prospects were not good.
But this news was vastly overshadowed by frantic reports emanating from Mexico. Fighting had broken out everywhere between the Allies in country and Mexican forces suddenly batting for the other side!
No
real details were available on how this had happened or why a supposedly democratic-led government had overthrown another and then joined the MAB, but a coup had overthrown the Mexican Republic and created the United States of Mexico! A new political faction (!?) of the PAN led by Álvaro Cervantes had taken over, reinstating elections and taking Mexico back into the MAB.
They had also granted the non-factional US military access, while now pockets controlled by various Allied expeditionary forces from Germany, the UK, Yugoslavia and Belgium had formed across the country.
The US and newly installed United States of Mexico government signed a military access agreement in Washington D.C. immediately upon the execution of the coup on 11 December 1944. Even though the UMS were formally aligned with the MAB, there must have been some degree of collusion beforehand with the UMS delegation already in the US capital and for access to have been granted so quickly.
In the south, significant groups of Allied forces had already started fighting the Mexican renegades. The Germans retained control of two larger pockets on the north-west and south-east of the border with the US.
But the overall result was chaos and the collapse of an effective southern front, even as their comrades marooned in Canada fought a life and death struggle against all odds. In the most important theatre of the war, within a week the entire Allied position had imploded, while the deadlock in Asia dragged on.
In the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw, when the Minister Beck heard of this catastrophic news of Mexican perfidy, he simply exclaimed: “They did
what!?” He asked for some insight into how this may have happened, but little was found.
Back at the end of November, the Mexican Republic under Miguel Cervantes had seemed in complete control. Elections had been abolished and his administration was attempting to suppress resistance during the ongoing but dormant civil war against Plutarco E. Calles’ PNR, who had earlier seen Mexico on the side of the Communists before they had been ousted with Allied help, bringing Mexico into the Allied faction and most recently into the war against the US.
The only clue was maybe the low stability of Miguel Cervantes’ regime, perhaps exacerbated by their recent reluctant entry into the war against the US, maybe made worse by the recent collapse of Canada. Whatever the cause and mechanics of this new Mexican Revolution, the Allies now had to deal with its consequences.
=======
11-14 December 1944: Quiet Desperation
Elsewhere, there was confusion caused where deployed Mexican expeditionary contingents ‘turned traitor’ and either fighting broke out with co-located Allied divisions or they seized ground where they were unopposed in far off territory.
Crucially, this delivered the MAB a gift in the North Tonkin Coast, a focal point of MAB efforts all month so far. A locally based Mexican division went rogue right in the middle of the latest MAB attack. In confused fighting and reporting, a large defensive battle was supposedly lost early on the 11th, though by that night the Allied (mainly Polish) defenders were still fighting on against an attack by 6 PLA divisions attacking from the west and north.
In southern Indochina, an intra-provincial battle was under way to eliminate two more rogue Mexican divisions trying to take the port there.
Meanwhile, up in the north 18 DP had arrived to reinforce the South African defence of East Jiuquan, a battle the Allies would win the following day.
And a poorly-planned British invasion attempt on Wake Island using Nationalist Chinese troops was in the process of being defeated by a far stronger US garrison.
A day after the coup in Mexico, the UMS was already in some trouble after the remaining Allied forces there had occupied a third of their key cities.
Two more Allied attempts to retake the North Tonkin Coast after its occupation by the MAB would be fought out over coming days, both ultimately failing by the 17th, with heavy Allied and even heavier MAB casualties.
The St Lawrence Pocket had been further isolated by midday on the 14th as Allied formations were forced to retreat from its peripheries. The US Army was now on the outskirts of Halifax and attacking, though so far the defence was holding there, where they at least had access to supplies.
The Québec Pocket was also being squeezed further shut.
In western Canada, the attempt to re-establish contact with the Pacific Coast had failed, but a thin line of communications had been restored with the troops in the centre, stretching across to the western shore of Hudson Bay.
So stood the situation as the first two eventful and – for the Allies – disastrous weeks of December 1944 ended. A month that had begun with some hope had gone downhill ever since. At least the Poles were happy they had not committed troops to either of the hot messes that had eventuated in Canada and Mexico.
. Hope RL didn’t play too roughly with you.
