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KaiserMuffin said:
If I was Himmler I'd not bitch... I'd plot about removing that Hitler fellow now he's done his job...

Wellllll... Himmler's been sidelined in Turkey-Iran for two years, focusing on his anthropological hobbies. In the internal political game of the Reich, Himmler has pretty much totally eclipsed Goering, whom I replaced as air minister in early '46 as part of what I think of as the "fighter revolution" - Germany developed jets and researched like eight fighter techs back-to-back. In addition to Goering's role in the Luftwaffe being superseded by men like Grauert and Udet, thanks to cooperation between the SS and the Army, the 1938 debate over who got control of the airborne forces (real-world won by Goering) was never fully settled, and the first Fallschirmjaeger who imprinted his name on the German public was Julius Ringel - an Army general. Indeed, Kurt Student didn't actually lead a jump into combat until mid-1945, by which time Wilhelm Krueger had led the first SS paratroopers into combat in Russia and Turkey. The SS, meanwhile, has something like twenty divisions (a lot of the Waffen-SS events didn't fire because I overran the Soviets a little too thoroughly and too soon) of pure SS troops, and some of those "divisions" were corps-sized before Italy and army group-sized after (LSSAH and Das Reich are both twelve-division "divisions," while Totenkopf, Wiking, and Polizei are each six and Nord is corps-sized), plus the various "black" divisions, which are just Army or Reichsmarine divisions with SS stiffeners. Result is there are something like half a million of the total ground forces of the Reich in Waffen-SS troops, taking a division as about ten thousand men. I've been lazy and haven't added Heydrich as an air leader, which I considered (Hartmann's in there, and he never reached major-general either), but I figure that there's a Luft-SS that answers to him. Himmler's Reich Police Leader from 1938, even if he never made interior minister and I've made a careful point of subjugating all of the 1930s extralegal nonsense to the rule of law once the Party was in full control. Point of all this is that Himmler is pretty much set as the Fuehrer's heir at this point, and the SS is so vast that he's afforded pretty much whatever leisure opportunities he wishes. He is therefore content to import steppe ponies from the Kazakhs, conduct anthropological studies in Iran, and attend to the minimal duties required of a garrison commander on the Iraq border.

volksmarschall said:
Italy has fallen, and with most of Europe and Eurasia under your control... maybe a German Civil War is coming! :p (that would be quite interesting in my opinion). I see a massive showdown in Western Europe next.

And you'd be right, if it weren't for one thing: the Attlee Government. Attlee has an excellent reputation OTL. In this one, the coup madness of 1946 really messes things up in that regard. I already spoiled the surprise about France, just not the details. It was... underwhelming. The most emotionally gripping of my wars was Italy (though I expect the US will be fun if I can get a stable save game!). The Italians and their level 5 mountain forts at Turin and Genoa really gave me some worries before Gerd von Rundstedt discovered his love of rock climbing rather late in life.

Weird leader traits that have developed thus far...

Erich von Manstein, the meticulous planner whom Hitler OTL described as being the perfect commander if given time to develop his plan thoroughly and adequately supplied, is an Assaulter, after Rome. It seems fitting, given that I've been doing a lot more off the march than I expected.

Gerd von Rundstedt, who is seventy in 1946, is a Mountaineer and a Ranger.

Julius Ringel, who OTL was a mountain warfare expert, is a Desert Fox.

Sepp Dietrich, who has spent his entire war in tanks, is a Ranger. Ditto Willi Bittrich. I think this is what comes of hunting Russian partisans with tanks.
 
5. The West: The Low Countries and France

The period after Case Dietrich was used as a rest for the Reichsheer, and an opportunity for the Reich's diplomatic efforts to redouble. The Attlee Government sent the Fuehrer a telegram of congratulation on the elimination of Mussolini, whose bombast and radicalism had threatened to destabilize the Mediterranean for twenty years, but the emerging leader of the Conservative opposition in Britain, Winston Churchill, felt quite differently on the fall of Italy.

We are cheering the conquest of the birthplace of the rule of law by iron-shod barbarism. It is the nature of totalitarianism that it cannot exist side-by-side with democracy, and I assure the Members that what befalls Italy today shall befall Britain and France tomorrow if we choose not to act. I respectfully disagree with those of the Government who say that what happens on the Continent does not directly affect us; I ask who among the Members has not traveled to Rome, to Athens? Who here cannot be but moved by the plight of the cities of the Renaissance under the German boot? It shames me deeply to watch, and not to act, and I am saddened that the respected gentlemen of the Government do not share my shame.

Churchill's protests aside, the Attlee Government willingly signed a treaty of mutual non-aggression with the German Foreign Ministry. In the meantime, the Reichswehr's consolidation and expansion to meet the manpower requirements of its post-Italy organization continued apace. Between May of 1946 and March of 1947, garrisons and peacekeeping units were established throughout Italy and the fighting troops withdrawn for some well-deserved rest within Germany proper. They were slowly repositioned along the Rhine, specifically aimed at the heart of Belgium. The Fuehrer had decided almost immediately upon the fall of Rome and the signing of the Attlee Agreement that the time had come to eliminate Germany's ancient rivals and re-establish the Reich as Karl der Grosse's heirs according to the Treaty of Canossa.

The first phase of this war was to be the joint execution of Cases Siegfried and Hagen, the occupation of the Low Countries. This would violate many of the Fuehrer's stated promises regarding neutral countries, but at this point, the Chancellor and Fuehrer of the Greater German Reich was not a man inclined to consider outdated treaties signed before there was a unified German state as binding. The men who would lead this assault were the same men who had led into Italy, though the mountain troops and paratroopers who had dominated much of the Italian fighting had no place in the Low Countries. They were instead massed on the Provence-Milan border with France as a counterweight in case of French action.

Case Siegfried, the occupation of Belgium, had been planned for well over a decade. One of its earliest architects was the paratrooper general Kurt Student of the Luftwaffe, currently garrisoning Italian Libya and patiently awaiting transport back to the airfields of the Reich; he would be disappointed for the moment, but his contribution to Case Siegfried was significant. It was the seizure of the fortress of Eben-Emael, which had been built into the parachutist training program at Stendal as an advanced exercise for specially chosen troops. Eben-Emael was deemed unconquerable by conventional means, so small, well-trained units had been set up in rotation to take the fortress by glider assault. Over time, the gliders yielded to low-altitude deployment from "civilian" aircraft, but the essence of the plan remained unchanged; indeed, Eben-Emael would be the first known deployment of directional, fully steerable parachutes.

Bundesarchiv_Billd_146-1971-011-27%2C_Belgien%2C_Eben_Emael%2C_Fallschirmj%C3%A4ger.jpg

Figure 81: The first graduating class of the Eben-Emael-Drill, 1940 - including future 1947 operation leader Major Witzig

A late-winter storm system delayed the execution of Case Siegfried; the Reich used this period as an opportunity to invest in a diplomatic offensive against Belgium and the Netherlands. The Dutch had by this point been embroiled in a war with Japan for more than a decade without anything more than minor islands changing hands on either side; this was seen as a violation of their own promises of neutrality, and a danger to the peace and stability of East Asia. The Reich had no interest in East Asia, but, as Minister Goebbels pointed out, a threat to one man in a distant country like Japan could one day be a threat to any citizen of the Reich.

On March 20, 1947, the go-ahead for Case Siegfried went out from Berlin. The German army advanced on a relatively broad front, aiming at Liege and Antwerp for the overland assaults. During this operation, SS-Brigadefuehrer Otto Skorzeny made the first of his many remarkable appearances on the battlefield, launching an airborne operation with his SS-Kaempfverbaende and seizing the critical cities of Mons and Namur before any effective Belgian resistance manifested. He then joined in the ground assault on Liege, which had by now also linked up with the airborne troops at Eben-Emael. Skorzeny's maneuvering was simply too rapid for Belgian response, stunned by the Germans to their front, to react to in their rear. By the end of March, the Belgian government had capitulated and Case Hagen went into action, wheeling the forces occupying Belgium north into the Netherlands, and south along the French border to contain any response. The Dutch war boiled down to skirmishing around Wilhelmshaven and a quick dash to secure the dams and bridges along the coast along the line Rotterdam-Amsterdam. Finally, what the Fuehrer had seen as the 1938 insult of the Dutch receiving a Sowjet cruiser was avenged.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1969-097-17%2C_Kapitulation_der_Niederlande.jpg

Figure 82: The final capitulation of the Netherlands was signed in the village courthouse of Rijsoord on April 7, 1947

The Dutch government collapsed upon the German arrival in Amsterdam, fleeing to Batavia in the Pacific and suing for terms. The Fuehrer's terms were surprisingly moderate. He had, he stated quite clearly, no interests in a Pacific or African colonial empire, and would hold those lands in trust only until they were capable of self-government. The Dutch possessions in the Pacific were clearly fit to govern themselves under the existing government-in-exile; however, the Netherlands themselves, as speakers of Low German and cultural Germans, must become part of the Greater German Reich. Queen Wilhelmina, facing the losses faced by her country at a rate that no observer of the past thirty years could have predicted, saw no choice but to capitulate.

All was now in readiness for the Fuehrer's long-planned climactic showdown with France, waiting only on his command. The summer of 1947 was deceptively quiet, with no movement on the French front at all; however, even the French, according to their War Ministry archives, captured in Paris, felt that the final war in the west must soon commence. Tensions were high, a state that not even the maintenance of the regular leave schedule for units on the French border could remedy. A German airliner, mistakenly identified as an airborne transport, was shot down over the Mediterranean by French fighters. The situation approached the unbearable.

During this period, there was a debate in the High Command regarding the proper course of action in France. General Becker, returned from his Eastern service, had quietly informed the High Command that the Goettingen Pile had borne fruit, that the Reich could look forward to an average of one new atomic device (Urangeraet, literally "uranium device," commonly called nuclear in the West) every nine months until facilities could be expanded. Many wanted to use this atomic reserve on France; the Fuehrer intervened in absolute refusal. To deliver such a weapon on Paris, he thundered, would be equivalent to delivering it to the mausoleum of Paul von Hindenburg. Since the goal of this war was a reunion of German and Frankish strains of the old Empire, destroying the heart of the Franks utterly would leave the German strain carrying the entire weight of empire. The Fuehrer laid down the law regarding the conduct of the French campaign: a purge of the museums would be needed, but an atomic purge was forbidden.

The German military was better-positioned for a war in France than it had been in 1914, since the front line was now the Belgian-French border, rather than the Belgian-German. The Rhine was, of course, unbreachable at present because of the extensive Maginot fortifications, and early German reconnaissance considered the Maginot's extension to the north along the Belgian border nearly impregnable too. This proved a sad overestimate of French fortifications in the region as soon as the new border had been established; the extension line proved to be nothing more sinister than a network of reinforced trenches, hardly more than any self-respecting army would provide for itself in field exercises as a temporary measure. Similarly, the vaunted French tanks of the period, which had been compared with the Panther, were poorly handled once Germany got a chance to observe them in maneuvers along the border. Certainly they were nothing compared with the veterans reaching all the way back to Poland in 1937.

The plan for the invasion of France was, ideally, a double envelopment with the Belgian and Provencal wings meeting in the region of Vichy. The High Command recognized that this maneuver would likely not progress according to this plan, and chose to emphasize destruction of the French army in the south, where the terrain made maneuver difficult, and conquest of French industry in the north where the ground favored the Reich's by now typical armor concentration. The High Seas Fleet was meanwhile tasked with the interdiction of any outside forces which might wish to involve themselves; the Mediterranean Fleet with the blockade of Toulon and the transfer, when the time came, of forces to North Africa; the Asiatic Fleet, Germany's newest and most modern fleet operating out of occupied Iran, with the transfer of a small task force to French Indochina, then the destruction of any French or allied vessels which they might find; and the U-waffe (submarine force; submarine forces in the Reichsmarine did not fall directly under regional command at the time - trans.) directed to engage targets wherever they could be found, including if need be in American waters.

karlfrance.png

Figure 83: General Plan, Case Karl, European Front

In addition to the decisive front on the European battlefield, there was the so-called "colonial front." This actually encompassed a wide variety of operations; the most heavily equipped offensive was that into Syria, which was planned to encompass British Irak and Egypt if the British chose to intervene in the destruction of France. The goal of this heavily mechanized force, stiffened by a corps of mountaineers, was the capture of French Damascus and the Lebanese coast in order to solidify the Reich's grip on the Mediterranean.

The second of the colonial operations was a straightforward overland march by General Student and his paratroopers from Tripoli in Libya in order to secure Tunisia and open the way to an armored thrust from Tunis to Dakar, and south to Libreville. The Italian occupation force would provide the armor; all Student's men had to do was capture the port at Tunis and entangle any further French forces in North Africa. Student, proud of the results of his Eben-Emael plan, readily agreed to the operation.

On July 28, 1947, the thirty-third anniversary of the first shots of the Great War, Case Karl, the destruction of France, was put into effect. Despite the fears expressed by many General Staffers of the outcome of war with France, the operation went exactly as planned. Two weeks of fighting put German troops in Paris; a further week saw a link being formed between northern and southern wings. The Fuehrer felt the time had come to order a general assault on the famed Maginot Line. Field Marshal Busch, who had replaced General Hoepner as Chief of the General Staff upon the latter's elevation to command of the Army, protested vehemently, pointing out that the Maginot Line had been built specifically to resist such an assault. "My dear Field Marshal," the Fuehrer replied, "that matters not in the slightest, and besides, the only bullets reaching those soldiers now are German." The assault was a surprising, and total, success: fewer soldiers participated in the capture of the Maginot Line than died in the fighting between Turin and Genoa.

For once, the Western Powers did not completely abandon France. While debate raged in both the British Parliament and the American Congress regarding the validity of the Truman-Ribbentrop and Attlee-Ribbentrop Agreements, the governments of the various Dominions of the British Empire and the American puppet regimes of Central and South America were unanimous in their declaration of war against the Reich. The Chancellor and Fuehrer reportedly greeted the declarations with amused contempt: "So much the better; my Reichsmarine needs sharpening."

By the end of August, the continental and Syrian phases of the French campaign were complete. The French Field Marshal Henri Petain, hero of the Great War, approached both German and French governments, offering to broker a peace which both parties could accept; the Fuehrer's reply was succinct:

Tell that old fool that he is as antiquated as his country. Yesterday belongs to the French, tomorrow belongs to the Reich.

Only at sea, in Africa, and in Indochina did the war continue; Student fought his way into Tunis by September 11 after a march which matched his previous move from Benghazi to Tripoli in difficulty if not in length. The French Foreign Legion, the one entity of the French army whose reputation had survived contact intact, fought a well-organized retreat from the Tunisian frontier. In alteration of the original African plan, newly promoted SS-Gruppenfuehrer Skorzeny and his parachutists secured Algiers and three dozen armored divisions of the French invasion force were shifted to North Africa, with the goals of capturing Casablanca (von Manstein), Dakar (von Arnim), and Libreville (Dietrich). A similar move, under escort by a half-dozen Reichsmarine battle cruisers, moved through the Suez Canal and landed troops in French Indochina. Finally, on October 12, 1947, the French government collapsed utterly. The Reich was victorious, and neither the British nor the Americans had reached the end of their protracted debate. It was, in the eyes of many in the High Command, time to begin peacemaking.

The Fuehrer had other plans. News from Britain and America showed that public opinion vociferously supported intervention now; the Attlee Government was teetering. Now, he argued, was the time to strike: the Reichsmarine must be concentrated in the English Channel and the Reichsheer prepared for one last tremendous effort against England. This conflict must be resolved by November 1948, and no later - the thirtieth anniversary of the armistice of the Great War.

---

To Be Continued. I start work early tomorrow morning and my game crashed two days from the autosave, so you don't get Sealion tonight.
 
There's no doubt that Sealion will succeed once it's commenced. I mean, everyone else in Europe has pretty much fallen.

So no nuking of Paris...but what about in England or elsewhere?
 
Sealion succeeds, and I actually have screenshots of it. What crashed my game was loading a nuke into a V2 to lob at Delhi... two days before the autosave date. So I suspect there's a mod bug regarding nukes. I'll have to see if it recurs on reload.

Kind of ironic, that Churchill spends a decade or so warning of the German threat, then comes to power A - because of Sealion, and B - for about six weeks.
 
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Kind of ironic, that Churchill spends a decade or so warning of the German threat, then comes to power A - because of Sealion, and B - for about six weeks.

Better late than never, I suppose.
 
Yes, indeed it is.

Edit: Where do you get all of your historical pictures? They're all very good.

They're almost universally Bundesarchiv pics pulled off Wikipedia. They better be good, they're the official German historical photos of the period. :p
 
And the American troops, who are laden with two hundred pounds of personal equipment but get personal trucks as well, and who are constantly ramming Hershey bars down their grain-fed throats. Kind of funny that a country whose army currently can't pass its own PT tests has always had that view of US troops. That was an interesting conversation to have with a certain German engineering professor of mine. :p
 
6. The New Order: The British Empire

The Fuehrer's plan for Britain was multifold, consisting of the following points:

1. Conquest of the British Home Islands.

The psychological shock of a German landing on British soil was, the Chancellor estimated, sufficient to bring the British government to ask for terms; if it failed, the Reichsheer was to occupy the whole of Britain itself and bring the British to negotiation by force.

2. Seizure of British Imperial resource regions.

To ensure that the British Empire was incapable of responding as Germany herself had to a Versailles-like peace, Germany must emasculate the British Empire. The immediate goal was therefore the destruction of the governments of Burma, Irak, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia; though the last was not directly affiliated with the British Empire, the seizure of the Arabian Peninsula would effectively place the world's oil supply under Reich control, beyond British reach.

3. Political isolation of Britain.

The Reich's long-term security relied on the establishment of a European order in which no country could challenge Germany. This included within the British Isles. If Britain could not be brought immediately to negotiate and hence preserve her integrity, suitable candidates for Reich-friendly governments in Wales and Scotland must be found and set up, and their independence made part of any peace negotiations. Abroad, a similar course should be followed in Africa and India - the elimination of British dominions and establishment of Reich allies where possible should be a natural consequence of any occupation. In India, this was especially critical simply to reduce the size of the area's polities; the Hindu-Moslem religious divide would be fully exploited in this region in order to maximize the effect of this policy. In Africa, as a base requirement, the destruction of South Africa as an entity was required.

4. Establishment of a Reich ally on the British throne.

This measure was actually the easiest to enact; the former King Edward VIII was residing in Portugal, a Reich ally, at the time that the invasion plan was approved. The most uncertain portion of the plan was the British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, who was unreachable without disclosing the planned invasion. Before the war, like the American Lindbergh, he had been a supporter of the Reich's modernization. Now, however, his position was less clear, especially in the face of an invasion.

The sum of these goals was Case Wilhelm, the most ambitious operation the Reich had attempted since the Sowjet war, involving fighting on no fewer than seven fronts - Egypt, Irak-Jordan-Arabia, west India, east India-Burma, central Africa, south Africa, and Britain. It was perhaps the most complex military action since the Mongol campaigns, and executed on a far more centralized basis.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1971-070-61%2C_Hitler_mit_Gener%C3%A4len_bei_Lagebesprechung.jpg

Figure 84: Hitler and the Generals during the planning of Case Wilhelm

Despite the fact that he was not personally involved in the planning for the invasion, Grand Admiral Raeder telegraphed all fleet units available and ordered their assembly, along with all of the Reich's militarized shipping, in the Low Countries. He arrived himself in the late hours of October 15, 1947, and after a brief conference with Lieutenant-General Ramcke, a uniquely qualified officer whose training and experience thus far had covered both parachute and amphibious operations in Scandinavia, proceeded by Fieseler Storch to Berlin. In Berlin, he presented Ramcke's invasion plan, a revised version of the 1941 Manstein Plan prepared while the Reich had been actively focusing on developing an amphibious capability. Ramcke's plan was for a concentrated landing on the Dover coast, followed by a rapid breakout through Norfolk and Sussex to encircle London; it differed from Manstein's in that it neglected diversionary landings in Sussex and Norfolk in favor of a narrow beachhead easily secured by naval forces.

Matters were further complicated by an emergency meeting between Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop and the Japanese ambassador, General Oshima. Oshima behaved with typical Oriental reserve, given the gravity of his message: he was charged by the Showa Emperor to report that the United States had resumed hostilities with Japan, and under the circumstances the Emperor saw no choice for Japan but to ally herself with Germany. This involved Germany in the seven-year-old war boiling in the Philippines, but the Fuehrer, remembering Japan's political support during the lean years of the 1930s, agreed. On October 25, 1947, the German Reich found itself at war with the United States. The only hope for a rapid end to the war was a show of force in Britain, so Wilhelm went ahead. The Fuehrer's parting words to Raeder were unusually pensive:

Well, Admiral, it all rests on your shoulders now - keep the Channel open for a week and I'll be happy, then it'll be the soldiers' work.

On October 27, the Reichsmarine sortied to secure the Channel; the transports were not far behind. The initial landings were conducted by pressed civilian craft, since war was not formally declared. Most of the soldiers involved in the operation expected the invasion of Britain to be a rapid affair; indeed, Field Marshal von Rundstedt, the overall commander of land forces, had planned a visit to British mystery writer Agatha Christie. Navigational errors put Field Marshal Hausser's 1. Panzerarmee north of the Thames. When notified, Hausser gave his famous reply.

Very well, we shall fight the war from here.

Hausser's troops came ashore near Clacton-on-the-Sea in force against minimal resistance - no one on either side had expected a landing in Norfolk. On the Dover approach, the invasion forces were held up for more than a day by heroic defense on the part of the garrison, until Hausser, using the same boats which had led the initial wave, forded the Thames Estuary and came into Kent from the north. Such British troops as could retreated; many were forced to die where they stood by the rapidity of the German advance. In London, Prime Minister Attlee's resignation was accompanied by the distant echo of Hausser's guns, and the ascent of Winston Churchill, Germany's longtime foe in the British Parliament, marred by the fact that for the first time since William of Orange, foreign troops were on British soil. Churchill gave one of his famous orations, though even here the sound of distant gunfire intruded into the BBC's sound studio:

The whole question of home defence against invasion is, of course, powerfully affected by the fact that we have for the time being in this Island incomparably more powerful military forces than we have ever had at any moment in this war or the last. But this will not continue. We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to our Ally. We have to build up the Home Army, under its gallant Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort. All this is in train; but in the interval we must put our defences in this Island into such a high state of organisation that the fewest possible numbers will be required to give effective security and that the largest possible potential of offensive effort may be realised. On this we are now engaged. It will be very convenient, if it be the desire of the House, to enter upon this subject in a secret Session. Not that the government would necessarily be able to reveal in very great detail military secrets, but we like to have our discussions free, without the restraint imposed by the fact that they will be read the next day by the enemy; and the Government would benefit by views freely expressed in all parts of the House by Members with their knowledge of so many different parts of the country. I understand that some request is to be made upon this subject, which will be readily acceded to by His Majesty's Government.

We have found it necessary to take measures of increasing stringency, not only against enemy aliens and suspicious characters of other nationalities, but also against British subjects who may become a danger or a nuisance should the war be transported to the United Kingdom. I know there are a great many people affected by the orders which we have made who are the passionate enemies of Nazi Germany. I am very sorry for them, but we cannot, at the present time and under the present stress, draw all the distinctions which we should like to do. If parachute landings were attempted and fierce fighting attendant upon them followed, these unfortunate people would be far better out of the way, for their own sakes as well as for ours. There is, however, another class, for which I feel not the slightest sympathy. Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand, and we shall use those powers subject to the supervision and correction of the House, without the slightest hesitation until we are satisfied, and more than satisfied, that this malignancy in our midst has been effectively stamped out.

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of invasion, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long centuries of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of Napoleon the same wind which would have carried his transports across the Channel might have driven away the blockading fleet. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Continental tyrants. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods have been adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous maneuver. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government - every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation.

The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight wherever we shall find the foe, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Churchill's speech, while it did what it was meant to do and excited the British public to defend against the landings, was too little, too late. Von Rundstedt had already reached Christie's Devon estate, only to find her absent in Manchester, on November 2, 1947. She was prevented from returning either to it or to London by Field Marshal Geyr von Schweppenburg, whose thrust northeast out of the beachheads was aimed at the separation of Wales from the United Kingdom. Von Schweppenburg's attack was matched by a drive by SS General Wilhelm Bittrich and the Wiking division into Scotland; other than these two detached forces, the entirety of the German force in England concentrated in a ring around London. Churchill's bravado was to be tested sorely; by December 1, the city was completely sealed off from the outside world.

On a bitterly cold day in Edinburgh, December 10, 1947, a hastily-assembled pipe and drum corps stood in freezing rain to welcome the first monarch of independent Scotland in two hundred and forty years, Charles III, of the Galloway Stuarts. In his coronation speech, the new Scots monarch, in his mid-30s, informed the assembled, dispirited crowd that this was not an end of their relations with England, which could never be completely severed, but the beginning of a new golden age for Scotland. It was perhaps one of the most ironic beginnings for any nation, especially considering that the first order of business was the presentation of the Order of the Thistle to a series of high-ranking Germans beginning with General Bittrich. This was the second and more significant of the Fuehrer's blows at the fundamental structure of Britain; the Scots dissolution of the Act of Union technically ended "Great Britain" as an entity, though the British crown retains the name to this day.

deathoftheempire.png

Figure 85: The disintegration of the British Empire, November-December 1947

Elsewhere in the world, the war continued apace. Irak had collapsed within days of the invasion order going out; it had been followed in short order by Saudi Arabia and Yemen, giving Germany total dominance of the Arabian Peninsula. In Egypt, Walter Model drove east from the German starting position in Tobruk, assisted in a hammer-anvil approach by Lieutenant-General Ringel and his paratroopers. They took Alexandria on November 12, freeing the forces which had advanced across the Suez for an assault on Cairo which succeeded on the 18th. Model and Field Marshal Kesselring, commander of the Suez assault force, both turned their attention to India. In India, General Guderian fought a series of dazzling battles against forces which frequently outnumbered him ten-to-one, but retreated with minimal force applied. However, he was a victim of his own success and quickly found himself overextended, chasing willy-nilly across the Indian countryside in an attempt to keep his front intact. To the east, an SS-led force marching out of former Indochina maintained the pressure required to keep Guderian mobile, reducing Burma to surrender by December 20.

By this time, SS-Marshal Dietrich had reached Pretoria and forced the surrender of the Smuts government. It was a fairly amicable surrender; the old Boer was forced to admit his admiration for Dietrich, who had marched without connection to his own supply lines for the past three weeks, his rear covered only by Portuguese infantry. Dietrich, for his part, welcomed the South Africans into the Reich as true, albeit geographically mislaid, Germans, and tarried only long enough to be informed that, unbelievably, the British Indian Army was marching to South Africa's relief - a full eighty divisions had mysteriously appeared in Windhoek without resistance. It was a problem swiftly dealt with; Dietrich was able to provide the Fuehrer with the most lavish Christmas present of captured standards imaginable.

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Figure 86: London's St. Paul's Cathedral, obscured by smoke from the Battle of London

In Britain, the long, drawn-out agony of London was only beginning. For three weeks, the Reich had tightened its grip on the city. Within, Field Marshal Gort had a mere two armored and one motorized division, plus the various Territorial units which had been swept in during the encirclement, for a total of an estimated 100,000 soldiers. Against this was arrayed the initial invasion force - well over a million Germans under arms - plus approximately the same number of troops shifted from the Continent. It is a tribute to Gort's heroic defense of the city of London that the assault was called for a re-equipping pause no fewer than three times, during which Churchill continued to exhort the city's defenders to their utmost.

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Figure 87: Prime Minister Churchill among the ruins of St. James's, Picadilly, Christmas Day, 1947

The Battle of London was the longest single battle fought by the Reich during the War Years, eclipsed only by the Battle of Verdun in 1916 in terms of casualties and destruction. From December 1, 1947 to the fall of London on February 2, 1948, over two hundred divisions of the Reichsheer and Waffen-SS converged on the city. The level of destruction was unparalleled in any urban center in the modern era.

Significantly, during this entire period, the Royal Navy proved incapable of dislodging Admiral Raeder from his position astride the resupply route, and Raeder steadfastly refused to be lured off of this approach. To his credit, Raeder's force, consisting essentially of the entire Reichsmarine outside the Mediterranean and a single Asiatic squadron, sank half of the existing Royal Navy in that strait, including the entire British carrier fleet. It was a battle which changed the perception of carrier power in the Reichsmarine. Even the outdated Graf Zeppelin was able to claim more than twenty ships to its credit, and Raeder transferred his flag about her from the battleship Tirpitz in honor of the achievement despite his well-known reservations about air as the decisive arm at sea. In exchange, he lost ten light warships, which were even then being replaced at Kiel.

As Raeder stayed in place, the Americans desperately attempted to relieve pressure on London with a broad-front landing in France aimed at pulling troops from Britain; however, this was simply not to be. Troops who had been sitting at embarkation points merely rolled westward from Calais, and northward from Bordeaux, where Field Marshal Rommel had waited patiently for the apparently inevitable order to invade Spain, and wiped out no fewer than fifty-five American divisions on the beaches. Perhaps most noteworthy was the defense of Brest, conducted by Lieutenant-General Ramcke, who had been cheated of participation in his own plan by an administrative error. Ramcke's three marine divisions were faced by eight American armored divisions led by their armored innovator, Patton, who had won some distinction during the abortive Second Mexican War. It proved to be a nearly equal struggle, with neither side acquiring any significant advantage in the bocage and shingle beaches, poorly suited for armor but excellently suited for a man like Ramcke, who had the distinction of being the only officer in the Reichswehr to complete the training for, and command, airborne, marine, and mountain forces during the war.

In the end, it was demoralization and an incapability for Gort to shuffle his outdated Churchill tanks everywhere that they were needed that cost the British the Battle of London. When he arrived to present awards and inspect the survivors, the Fuehrer was visibly shocked by the destruction, murmuring, "Perhaps we would have been more merciful to use the Device."

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Figure 88: London's Whitechapel district, the wreckage of Christ Church, Spitalfields, still standing

The Fuehrer was defeated in his ambition to meet his British opposite, who had opposed him from Parliament since a decade prior, before the Treaty of Munich. Prime Minister Churchill elected not to live to see the Empire fall, dying on February 1st as the last units under Gort's command surrendered on the Isle of Dogs, the city's last defensible position. Chancellor Hitler surveyed the wreckage of London, personally meeting with the men who had survived three harrowing months on both sides of the battle and visiting the extensive German Cemetary on the north bank of the Thames. He then quietly conferred with his architect, Albert Speer, and determined that perhaps Bamburgh Castle, to the north, would be a more suitable place for the inevitable peace conference.

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Figure 89: The end for the British Empire

Despite its location in Bamburgh, the conference was still referred to universally as the "London Conference." Its outcome was mostly predictable - a final settlement of the questions of African and Pacific colonies, a redress of Elsass-Lothringen, and the outright annexation to the Reich of Scandinavia, the Low Countries, the Balkans, Italy, and Asia Minor. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the French Marshal Petain appeared and announced that France would be reconstituted as a German ally. This was contrary to the Fuerher's stated war aims, "the reunion of eastern and western strains of Karl der Grosse's empire." Historians have puzzled over this; recently declassified documents reveal the Fuehrer's motives were simple: occupied France was a civilized country, and measures that kept the peace in the East were simply unacceptable against civilized people. The rising tide of banditry and political violence in France had led the Fuehrer to reconsider his occupation policy, and meetings with Petain had actually begun almost as soon as the Fuehrer had made his famous "The future belongs to the Reich" speech.

For two weeks, the United States and Germany continued technically to be at war. During those two weeks, intense negotiations between the two parties led to the reestablishment of Edward VIII as King of England - though he claimed the titles of the other British kingdoms and of Emperor of India despite India's dismemberment into Muslim and Hindu states by German occupation forces. The actual administration of the rump of Britain was to be carried out by the new "Lord Protector," a lifetime title granted to Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, in coordination with advisors from the Reich. The dominions of the British Empire, unsurprisingly, chose to shift their allegiance to the United States as an alliance of equals. The United States, shocked at the violence unleashed in Europe, chose to make peace with its enemies and withdraw to its sphere of influence. It was therefore a very pleased Chancellor and Fuehrer Adolf Hitler who returned from Bamburgh Castle to the Reich Chancellory on February 14, 1948, two months and six days short of his fifty-ninth birthday, the greatest conqueror in human history.
 
Looks like the sun just set on the British Empire. :(

Oh well, it's good for you! :cool: I wonder what the fate of Europe shall be now that it's in the hands of the Germans... with a Gray Europe, a Gray Scare and Cold War is next I presume for the Americans.
 
Edvard Mosley? That event is so badly written. Should be 'A provisional government was formed with the consent of Edward, Duke of Windsor, under the control of Oswald Mosley'

What are you talking about? It's Edvard Mosley, the famous Georgian emigre leader and anti-Communist. :p

Seriously, yeah, there are a few event text bugs. By a few, I mean there's a reason you rarely get event screenshots. Supposedly that's being fixed for the next release of RDD.

Regarding what's next, yes, it's a Cold War. Hitler has achieved his military objectives and is content to "retire" to massive architectural projects and an aggressive eastern colonization program. British India has broken free and has proclaimed a "Free Commonwealth" under Louis Mountbatten, but frankly, as long as they don't attack any of the Reich's satellites, I can't see a reason to go to war again until Germany completes her world-historical destiny and eliminates the Slavic menace root and branch, et cetera et cetera. Plus he's busy arguing with Speer, who's saying things like "You want me to build THIS...

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... IN A SWAMP???"

(Swamp? You ask? Yes, swamp. Berlin has more bridges than Venice.)
 
I don't think Hitler needs too you know. The Soviet Union's Slavic blood is being reintegrated by the hordes of asian peoples living in their remaining territory. In 100 years, ethnic Russians will be a persecuted minority. Hitler can rest on his Laurels and begin work on his grand strategic missile base cum berlin XD
 
I must ask why Greece and Asia Minor are integrated into the Reich, for they have no Slavs. Nay, resurrect Eastern Rome under an anti-Slav Greek government while Germany keeps everything outside Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, parts of Serbia, and Asia Minor!

That, and good job Reichsheer.
 
KaiserMuffin said:
I don't think Hitler needs too you know. The Soviet Union's Slavic blood is being reintegrated by the hordes of asian peoples living in their remaining territory. In 100 years, ethnic Russians will be a persecuted minority. Hitler can rest on his Laurels and begin work on his grand strategic missile base cum berlin XD

Event chain for Generalplan Ost. It's going to be just a little awkward to write about and stay inside forum rules, so I haven't even started tackling that project.

Hannibal X said:
I must ask why Greece and Asia Minor are integrated into the Reich, for they have no Slavs. Nay, resurrect Eastern Rome under an anti-Slav Greek government while Germany keeps everything outside Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, parts of Serbia, and Asia Minor!

That, and good job Reichsheer.

In that case, it has nothing to do with the threat to the east, and everything to do with the occasional bizarre anthropology-history fixations in the Reich. You can justify the invasion and annexation of Iran from a strategic perspective, but really the reason I used Himmler for that operation was "Oooh, Aryans!" Similar nonsense in Greece. If they're under Reich control, there are zero awkward diplomatic worries. Might be a couple under a liberated government.

From a purely strategic point of view, though, holding Turkey makes sense as a land bridge to the Middle East, which is under the German boot because it contains huge oil reserves. I now produce something like 12000 oil a month after exports.

On the other hand, because they were overlooked by the peace settlement with Britain, I'm turning Cyprus and Malta into free countries, and if you have a linguistic philosopher like Heidegger who wants to go somewhere to prove some obscure point about linguistics, there are two places to go in Europe, Malta and Basque Country.
 
Another smashing victory for Germany. Well done!

I remember seeing a show once about "New Berlin" and the problems of trying to build huge buildings in a swamp environment.