Weltkriegschaft

[TheHyphenated1]

ShadowWarrior - Ah! Now I see the ambiguous wording . I'm not sure if you're a reader or just dropping in, but welcome in any case .

Atlantic Friend - You are wise to be suspicious. Never let your guard down around these people. And Canaris Trap is a clever renaming indeed !

[ShadowWarrior]

I'm not sure if you're a reader or just dropping in, but welcome in any case

I've never read any AAR's before this month. My first AAR that I read was "The Game" of Blue Emu.
I enjoyed it so much that I went in search of others that is also interesting. I've subscribed to 5 AAR's already (including yours). I've enjoyed your stile of writing emensly, thanks.

On the comment I've made about your photo, when I read it the first time is struck me to be an odd angle taken from a submarine, but when I read it again, I realised that it meant the photo was taken after a sub attack.

[dublish]

ShadowWarrior - Ah! Now I see the ambiguous wording .

Yep, that's what I was getting at. I considered asking if the sub in question had simply plowed into the Active. Interesting to hear the details of the Active's actual demise. How is your naval war going (if at all)?

@trekaddict: The Hunt for Red October came before Patriot Games, and I'm fairly certain it was mentioned as the reason for Ryan's status in the CIA. If you meant chronologically first, then you are correct.

@TheHyphenated1: To be honest, I did suspect that Time article was genuine. It seemed like the kind of thing you would throw in just for added historical realism. Nicely done.

Lots of interesting developments in pre-war France, though I suppose they won't amount to much more than the (already quite considerable) current war. I wonder how the history books will play it.

The revelation of a spy within SD is surprising. My knowledge of WWII intelligence operations is limited, but I would have expected a member of the SS to be considerably less likely to start selling state secrets than, say, a member of the Abwehr (*cough*Canaris*cough*). I look forward to seeing where this goes.

[trekaddict]

@trekaddict: The Hunt for Red October came before Patriot Games, and I'm fairly certain it was mentioned as the reason for Ryan's status in the CIA. If you meant chronologically first, then you are correct.

Yep, chronologically. I've read everything up to Red Rabbit which should have been called Red Rubbish ( ) and I've always been of the opinion that Clancy was a bit surprised about the sucess of Hunt for Red October and only then decided to write more of that Universe.

[TheHyphenated1]

ShadowWarrior - Thank you very much and welcome again!

dublish - Yes. If you (or anyone else) happens to be curious about any sort of ancillary detail like that, feel free to ask, and I'll usually be able to answer. Keen eye about the Time article. I made great effort to seamlessly replicate the writing style of the original. The history books will depend on who the winner is . Keep your eyes peeled and your suspicions up!

trekaddict - You're probably right!

Part XXX should be up some time tonight.

[TheHyphenated1]

Sorry all! It looks like the text was accidentally highlighted when I started formatting. Hence, the worst and shortest update ever .

Luckily, this will give dublish something to rib me about, and take some of the heat off poor old Hardraade .

[trekaddict]

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Ehm... okay...

[UncleAlias]

[size=4]]/size]

Worst. Update. Evar!

[Kurt_Steiner]

The shortest update, ever.

Is it a coded update? Abwehr's experts, put to work!

[Ironhewer]

Maybe it's actually some new board shorthand for an incredibly rude hand gesture usually made while driving a motor vehicle.

[TheHyphenated1]

Chapter II: The Gambit of the West

Part XXX

June 4, 1936

In the back seat of Adolf Hitler’s limousine, Cristoph Scholl buried his hands in warm coat pockets as the countryside of Calais passed outside the window. It was his twenty-fourth birthday. Just five months before, he had been a nearly insignificant functionary -- Party Liason to the War Ministry. Now, the Führer of Germany sat eighteen inches away from him, his guard down, reading a book on vegetarianism. He had become a respected staff member, and the experience had changed him. In these months, Scholl had seen a private side of Adolf Hitler most generals could only imagine.

“Scholl?” The Führer had put down his book.

“Yes, Mein Führer?”

“What do you think of this? This shall be printed in all the Allied newspapers tomorrow morning.” He handed Scholl a single typewritten page.

In it, Hitler made the case for the continuance of the Berlin Olympics, whose fate was to be decided once and for all at Lausanne the following week. It was well-written, and his tone seemed reasonable enough, but Scholl doubted that the Warmongers would be inclined to listen.

“How do you like the conclusion? ‘The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn’t separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace.”

“It is greatly beautiful, Führer.”

“It is missing something.” Hitler clenched his jaw. “It needs a capstone -- something brief and symbolic. Something that will speak to the hearts of men.”

Scholl thought for some time. “What about ‘That is why the Olympic Flame should never die’?”

A gleam spread across Hitler’s face, revealing the small teeth that he was not proud of. “I like it, Scholl! That is what we shall print.” As he began to pencil that final sentence into the margin, the vehicle began to slow.

They had arrived at a military installation. Scholl wondered what particular importance this one had to deserve a visit. A young SS officer opened his door and Scholl stepped out. The chilly morning air smelled of the sea.

As the rest of the Führer’s entourage assembled, an Army delegation presented itself. The commander of the installation, a major, led the group a short distance uphill along a dirt path. More than thirty people were now snaking behind the main body, including two camera men, an official photographer and Hitler’s personal cook. They stopped where a large concrete bed had been recessed into the hilltop. Scaffolding still surrounded much of the structure, and a small blockhouse rose from the far lip of the recess. Six large anti-aircraft guns, the new 8.8 cm FlaK 36, had been positioned in reinforced pits at the center of the emplacement. Around the perimeter, four smaller machine guns had been installed, for directly engaging attacking aircraft.

“Mein Führer, Emplacement C-4 shall be fully completed within the week. Already, the thickness and strength of the concrete makes this one of the hardest anti-aircraft installations in use.”

He led them down into one of the gun pits. A gaping hole to the right of the flak cannon opened onto blackness.

“And here, Mein Führer,” the major said, “will go the modern ammunition lift for this weapon. As a result, handling will be safe and the gunners will be able to fire quickly and for a prolonged period.”

Scholl saw that Hitler was only half paying attention. Something else was on his mind.

“Yesterday,” the major briskly continued, “this crew shot down two British bombers. They shall be awarded the Iron Cross 3rd Class for this feat.”

Was the Warlord simply having a hard time processing the events of recent weeks? He had every right to be, Scholl thought.

From the very jaws of defeat at Munich, Germany had been delivered by the miracle of Paris and a radical change in strategy. The Bayerlein Plan had exploited the inherent inflexibility of French doctrine. Where the French relied on static defenses and decisive assaults, the Wehrmacht stressed “indirect” action -- unexpectedly giving ground, only to gain the upper hand through rapid penetrations and creative encirclements. This gap in methodology had allowed the Wehrmacht to make full use of the mobility afforded by Germany’s emerging mechanization. Single German divisions had tied up and confounded corps-size enemies, which often found themselves unable to force a battle until already themselves encircled. By the middle of May, this had precipitated a critical breakdown in French logistics and supply in a rear that became choked with refugees and countermarching soldiers.

The swiftness of the war had surpassed everyone’s wildest hopes. Most in Germany had been expecting a protracted and bloody struggle lasting perhaps years, now found themselves unexpectedly triumphant. Casualties, which might have run into the millions, had been reported by the War Ministry at a merciful 81,911 soldiers killed in action or presumed dead. During the course of the campaign, 550 armored vehicles had been counted as beyond repair. Though there were orders for more, the Panzerwaffe was for the time being reduced to around half strength.

According to the Luftwaffe, aircraft losses now totaled a serious but bearable 698. The Armée de l'Air was judged to have lost a slightly smaller number of planes. The British, however, had suffered staggering losses -- the Royal Air Force had lost somewhere over 1,100 of its airplanes. This was attributed in part to its dangerous doctrine of daylight tactical bombing, and in part to the vulnerability of the biplane fighters to the heavy flak they would encounter in escorting the bombers over German territory.


French aerial losses mounted toward the end of May.


“-- is able to maintain a rate of fire of fifteen shells per minute.” The major was gesticulating spiritedly.

Scholl tried to grasp where the Führer’s thoughts were. Perhaps he is distracted by disappointment.

For more than a week, rumors had been circulating about a French capitulation, even making their way into the highest echelons of the German government. At last, the Führer had resolved to take the initiative and offer an armistice himself. At the Berghof, he had spent several days drafting terms with Johann Graf von Welczeck, who had been Ambassador to France until the outbreak of war. In the opinion of von Welczeck, Albert Lebrun was a weak man and an impotent politician -- barely holding together a collapsing nation. The former ambassador explained that the situation was far more in German’s favor than it might seem. Though more than 600,000 French soldiers still bore arms, only some 320,000 of these were actually in the field; the rest were either still in the process of mobilization, in the depots or within units of negligible operational strength. Most of those yet in the field made up the three armies -- or rather, the reeling, disorganized remnants thereof -- desperately trying to stabilize the front in Normandy, the Loire valley and in Franche-Comté.

Given this, Count von Welczeck had judged, France would be in no position to refuse whatever terms Germany imposed upon her. The instrument cabled to the government in Bordeaux on the third of June was a harsh one indeed, intended as revenge for the hard peace imposed by the Allies almost eighteen years earlier at Compiègne.

The Reich would administer all the territory it had already taken, as well as the Atlantic ports of Brest, Lorient, Nantes and St. Nazaire. The remainder of France, in the south and west, would be demilitarized and subject to occupation. War reparations in the amount of 14.36 billion Francs -- calculated to be equal to those first demanded from Germany in 1918 -- were to be paid within five years. Some of this debt, the offer cheerfully added, could be offset by the seizure and dismantling of French strategic industries. The French Navy, for its part, was to immediately surrender all vessels in excess of 1378 tons. Vessels smaller than this -- principally the L’Adroit-class destroyers, their smaller Bourrasque-class cousins and tiny coastal corvettes -- were to promptly return to port and not take any further part in the war. All tracked armored vehicles were to be surrendered, presumably for dismantling; rail stock would be surrendered according to a list provided with the offer. In return, the French government would not be deposed, and could theoretically retain some measure of autonomy in the south.


German occupation of France, June 4th, 1936.

The actual signing of the armistice had been planned to the last detail. The very railway car in which the 1918 Armistice had been signed had been moved from a French museum to the very spot in the Forest of Compiègne where it had stood that fateful morning. The French representatives would arrive after a day-long tour of the battered Rhenish countryside, and be shown to the seats from which the defeated German delegation had signed away their nation’s freedom and honor. The Führer, sitting in French Marshal Ferdinand Foch’s old chair, would then reverse history upon his enemies -- poetically avenging all the past indignities.

Then, a brief and defiant reply. The offer had been refused.

France would fight on, even though it was plain to see that she was beaten. This development seemed to Scholl to genuinely baffle most of those around the Führer. Word had arrived later in the day that a military evacuation from the south of France was already beginning with British help. The French fleet would sail for Mers el-Kébir in North Africa, which Britain promptly reaffirmed its commitment to defend.

Had Hitler not extended the olive branch of goodwill in his February speech before the Reichstag? Scholl could not see why the Allies would want to go to war in the first place, much less prolong the struggle now.

The major at last mercifully concluded the tour, whereupon Hitler shook his hand politely and made his way beyond the emplacement over a narrow footpath. Scholl followed him.

Dark blue water was now visible far below, and in an instant he understood why Adolf Hitler had come here. A cool breeze was blowing.

The Führer, shivering slightly in his brown Party jacket, made his way by himself down the slope and gazed silently out across the Channel. In the misty distance, the white cliffs of Dover stood defiant and imposing.

France had hoped to strike down the Third Reich, but Providence had intervened, and she had been beaten against all odds. The Allies had been indecisive and slow to act; divided when unity was most needed; complacent in their power until the advantage had slipped away. Now Great Britain, spread thin and ill-prepared, was left to carry on the fight alone. In fifty-eight days, the gambit of the West, its great chance to subdue a strong and unrepentant Germany, had failed.

[trekaddict]

I gather the Vichy event dired and the French refused?

Or was it a normal peace offer?

Aweome map btw. If it wasn't the Vichy thing then by the look of things it should trigger soon.

[trekaddict]

Oh and what is a certain Major Rommel doing atm? Commanding a Panzer Batallion I hope. By the way this goes he might ahve aölready made Oberstleutnant ( Lieutenant Colonel.)

[stnylan]

Interesting. A very effective line I would think.

[TheHyphenated1]

dublish - "How is your naval war going (if at all)?" - It's not. Graf Spee is still undergoing sea trials, and the rest of the fleet is sticking awfully close to port right now. A few submarine/merchant actions, but nothing noteworthy.

trekaddict (1), UncleAlias, Kurt_Steiner, Ironhewer - . Sorry again.

trekaddict (2) - Thanks! And that was a normal offer, not Vichy.

trekaddict (3) - He has indeed become Oberstleutnant Rommel, and served ably in Belgium and Northern France. He's still waiting for his "big break" though.

stnylan - I'm afraid i'm not exactly sue what sort of line you're referring to .

[trekaddict]

trekaddict (3) - He has indeed become Oberstleutnant Rommel, and served ably in Belgium and Northern France. He's still waiting for his "big break" though.

Methinks he probably won't have it until 1939 when he becomes avaiable in the game. He could still be an intersting character.

[TheExecuter]

So, victory is receding into the fog then. Hopefully it is lifting rather than gathering...or Hitler will have dared in vain. You have no choice but to double up on the bet and play the next hand.

TheExecuter

[Slaughts]

Well the French don't have much of an Industrial base outside mainland France anyway. The only real problem at this point is the Brits across the channel. They do have the resources and the industry to compete and perhaps launch an amphibious operation anywhere. Perhaps what you could do is try to research and build some new bombers (be they TAC or NAV) and try picking off some lone Royal Navy Ships or at least bomb the hell out of their ports for a possible Sea Lion. As long as you can keep the Royal Navy distracted and land somewhere (like at Norwich like I usually do in my German games) north of London.

[Kurt_Steiner]

Hitler looking at the other side of the Channel... a good reason to look absent minded...

[stnylan]

stnylan - I'm afraid i'm not exactly sue what sort of line you're referring to .

‘That is why the Olympic Flame should never die’