Ok, I thought that somehow it was linked to the SS, but I wasn't sure of it.
Oh pretty interesting, thanks for the explanation.
Eagerly waiting for the next part.
-
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Ok, I thought that somehow it was linked to the SS, but I wasn't sure of it.
Oh pretty interesting, thanks for the explanation.
Eagerly waiting for the next part.
Personnel Decisions (Continued)
It was a very unhappy Fuehrer that came to the first cabinet meeting of 1936. He had spent much of the previous two weeks mediating disputes in priorities between conflicting ministries, and this was clearly on his mind as the Reich Cabinet gathered on that wintry January morning.
The Chancellor and Fuehrer laid down a comprehensive plan for government reform by dividing the cabinet into sub-committees. The two primary committees were the War Cabinet (Kriegskabinett - trans.) and the Economics Cabinet (Wirtschaftskabinett), though there was an additional Cultural Cabinet (Kulturkabinett) concerned with education and culture, answering to Minister Goebbels, and a number of ministers who did not answer specifically to any of the cabinets, but governed areas of specific importance to the Reich.
The War Cabinet was headed by the War Minister, at the time General von Blomberg, and included the heads of the Heer, Reichsmarine, Luftwaffe, and SS in their role as police, the heads of the Reich's security organs, and the Foreign Minister. The War Cabinet assumed the roles of the Kaiser's Army and Navy Cabinets, and its military components were responsible for planning any war which Germany might prosecute. To this end, they assumed the functions of the Kaiser's General Staff, albeit encompassing all of the services.
If General von Blomberg gained from his promotion to Field Marshal and the expanded power of the War Minister, he lost his influence on the Reich's economic planning. His replacement as the most influential voice on economics was taken by Franz-Xaver Schwarz, the Party Treasurer and the new Economics Minister, assisted by General Goering and Konstantin Hierl, the Reich Labor Leader at the ministerial level.
Minister Schwarz and Field Marshal von Blomberg became, at a single stroke of the Fuehrer's pen signing the Fuehrer Order, powers of the first rank alongside Himmler and Goering in the complex structure governing Germany. At least in 1936, they agreed with the Fuehrer that the immediate task facing Germany was rearmament and a military restructuring. Within 48 hours, orders flew out from the Economics Ministry, ordering the modernization of all facets of German industry. For his part, the War Minister ordered his subordinates' focus first on expanding their units to full training and proficiency before expanding the Reichswehr as a whole.
The Fuehrer's reorganization of the upper echelons of the Reich's government made many in both Party and Ministries nervous. Among the other orders emanating from Berlin early in 1936 was a categorical subordination of the police and all of the extrajudicial organs which had proliferated from the January 30th Revolution to the Justice Ministry under Franz Guertner. This was greeted with protest by Himmler, Heydrich, and Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, but this criticism was stifled by the Chancellor and Fuehrer's blunt statement that they could either accept the situation, or face investigation of their role in the extrajudicial system - charges which, it was not lost on Heydrich and Himmler especially, had been leveled at Ernst Roehm.
Figure 39: The most influential voices in the Reich Cabinet of January 1936
The Fuehrer had a separate meeting with Himmler, Heydrich, and the chief of military intelligence, Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. The Reich's intelligence situation, these three reported, was dire: they had essentially no intelligence system to mention outside of the Party's internal organs. Canaris drew a bleak picture of the Reich's intelligence apparatus, which the Chancellor overrode, ordering the intelligence organs into immediate operation in gathering information for the Eastern Question.
Minister Schwarz, meanwhile, began a series of measures meant to stimulate Germany's economy and strengthen German industry. According to an internal memorandum circulated from Schwarz to the leaders of the firms Krupp, Thyssen, Siemens, and Dr. Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank (who, according to contemporary accounts, was deeply offended that he was now receiving his marching orders from a "jumped-up Swabian records-clerk with no French"):
Schwarz, who had spent the pre-January 30th years as the Party treasurer and the ultimate voice in the Party's money matters, received General Becker of the Army's munitions research program on January 3rd, his third day in office. Becker asked Schwarz to consider the usefulness of large-scale calculating machines, geared to handle increasingly complex tasks - in short, to fund the work of Konrad Zuse, who was by now working for Becker in the basement of the Artillery School. Schwarz, as an old clerk, immediately saw some of the potential implications of Zuse's machine, and agreed to provide funding.
Figure 40: Reich research in 1936 focused exclusively on industrial applications.
As Schwarz ordered that German industry be restarted, von Blomberg took advantage of new conscription laws to begin the expansion of the Reichsheer's divisions to their full wartime strength. He received recommendations from each of the service chiefs, though he paid scant attention to General von Fritsch's memorandum on the strength of the Army - he had, after all, written the same report himself six months ago. From Admiral Raeder of the Reichsmarine, he received recommendations to establish a submarine school in direct contravention of the Versailles restrictions, and to scrap the two aging battleships Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein in favor of two modern battlecruisers; the two old cruisers were indeed so maintenance-intense that they were kept docked the majority of the time. The orders went forth, the hulls were decommissioned, and the Reichsmarine began its rebirth. The recommendations from General Goering were much more difficult to deal with: Goering wished to raise an infantry division for each of the Reich's major airports, and to deploy a Luftwaffe of fifty wings. Blomberg was willing to compromise and allow the expansion of the Reich's air infrastructure; a construction program would, after all, provide work for many Germans.
January and February were busy months in Berlin, but it would be difficult to see it from outside. Krupp Petrochemie, a subsidiary of the Essen steel firm, made inroads into Germany's continuing oil supply problem, but that was, again, far from the heart of the Reich. Siemens conducted radio experiments at research stations around the Reich's periphery, again out of sight. And in the basement of the Artillery School on Unter den Linden, relays clicked and whirred as Zuse continued his construction, out of sight of the world.
On February 27, the French and Sowjets announced that they had signed an accord, explicitly directed against the Reich. The Chancellor and Fuehrer was furious: the Reich's intelligence organs had given no warning. By the evening of Feburary 27, he had sent for Admiral Canaris and given him new orders, to proceed, as Kapitaen zur See Canaris, to assume command of the naval signals school in Kiel. His replacement was Major-General Eugen Ott. Ott had once been General Kurt Schleicher's personal adjutant, and had been the General's liaison with the future Chancellor in 1932-1933. Most recently, he had served in Tokyo as the military attache, a post he had filled since the death of President Hindenburg. Ott was, by all accounts, surprised by his recall, and the Japanese were suspicious of the sudden personnel change. They were only mollified by an extended personal telegram from the Fuehrer on the assassination of Prime Minister Saito.
The Chancellor also ordered the mobilization of two battalions of military engineers and police for dispatch into the Rhineland, an act which he privately admitted was more symbolic than effective. On March 7th, for the first time in almost twenty years, German troops entered the Rhineland. The following week was tense, but slowly the diplomatic response flowed in: Belgium congratulated Germany on "restoring her national dignity," in the words of King Leopold. France predictably claimed that the Franco-Sowjet Pact was strictly a defensive measure and that Germany had nothing to fear. Perhaps most ominously, a Sowjet cruiser docked in the IJsselmeer.
Figure 41: The Soviet cruiser Kirov, which visited the Netherlands in 1936
The remainder of the spring of 1936 passed without event; the Siemens firm invested extensively in hydroelectric dams in Afghanistan and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank proposed a radical revision of the Reich's monetary policy; Minister Schwarz considered it in great depth before approving Schacht's proposal with stiff restrictions and the elimination of the 1920s-era Rentenmark unofficial currency. Perhaps the most significant development of the year was the dispatch of a German military mission to China under Major-General von Falkenhausen. Officially their role was to advise and train Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalist army; unofficially their role was to test the next generation of the Reichswehr's equipment. They would spend three years in China, personnel rotating out as needed.
As German industry recovered, so too did German arms: the Luftwaffe received six of the fifty fighter squadrons for which General Goering had begged in the summer, and six more by winter. They were, admittedly, hopelessly outdated compared to the design which had surprised the world when it had overflown Berlin in 1935, but Messerschmitt continued to have problems with the revolutionary new fighter he was developing. More important, internationally, was the construction of DRMS Bismarck. The battleship was conceived and built in direct contravention of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935; once again, the Chancellor and Fuehrer called up the specter of the Franco-Sowjet Pact, and the Russian cruiser in Amsterdam.
Figure 42: Germany's security demanded that the Anglo-German Naval Agreement be abrogated.
Within a week, however, international reaction to Germany's naval rearmament was overshadowed by war in Spain.
Germany's reaction to the Spanish Civil War was immediate. As with General von Falkenhausen in China, the Luftwaffe began to form a military mission for dispatch to the Iberian Peninsula; even before the Luftwaffe mission was fully assembled, Minister Schwarz made a quiet economic deal: five thousand tons of military supplies, in exchange for three thousand tons of raw ores. The shipment proved far more prescient than the military mission - on August 13, 1936, the Nationalist government in Burgos surrendered to the Republicans.
Once again, the world's eyes turned to Berlin; three days after the news from Spain, the 1936 Olympics began. Germany won more medals in all categories than any other nation, and the unfounded fears among her neighbors that she would invade at any moment slowly receded.
Figure 43: Berlin's Olympic Stadium, 1936
Meanwhile, in the Artillery School basement, Zuse's engineers completed the Z3, a fully realized version of his mechanical computer, and turned its power on the diplomatic codes of Germany's neighbor Poland.
---
... And here I got a CTD, right after witnessing what I can only think of as "Third World Madness." The Allies versus Nicaragua versus Japan in a three-sided brawl which can only end badly for the poor Nicaraguans. Let's hope the madness doesn't permeate the autosave...
It was a very unhappy Fuehrer that came to the first cabinet meeting of 1936. He had spent much of the previous two weeks mediating disputes in priorities between conflicting ministries, and this was clearly on his mind as the Reich Cabinet gathered on that wintry January morning.
The Chancellor and Fuehrer laid down a comprehensive plan for government reform by dividing the cabinet into sub-committees. The two primary committees were the War Cabinet (Kriegskabinett - trans.) and the Economics Cabinet (Wirtschaftskabinett), though there was an additional Cultural Cabinet (Kulturkabinett) concerned with education and culture, answering to Minister Goebbels, and a number of ministers who did not answer specifically to any of the cabinets, but governed areas of specific importance to the Reich.
The War Cabinet was headed by the War Minister, at the time General von Blomberg, and included the heads of the Heer, Reichsmarine, Luftwaffe, and SS in their role as police, the heads of the Reich's security organs, and the Foreign Minister. The War Cabinet assumed the roles of the Kaiser's Army and Navy Cabinets, and its military components were responsible for planning any war which Germany might prosecute. To this end, they assumed the functions of the Kaiser's General Staff, albeit encompassing all of the services.
If General von Blomberg gained from his promotion to Field Marshal and the expanded power of the War Minister, he lost his influence on the Reich's economic planning. His replacement as the most influential voice on economics was taken by Franz-Xaver Schwarz, the Party Treasurer and the new Economics Minister, assisted by General Goering and Konstantin Hierl, the Reich Labor Leader at the ministerial level.
Minister Schwarz and Field Marshal von Blomberg became, at a single stroke of the Fuehrer's pen signing the Fuehrer Order, powers of the first rank alongside Himmler and Goering in the complex structure governing Germany. At least in 1936, they agreed with the Fuehrer that the immediate task facing Germany was rearmament and a military restructuring. Within 48 hours, orders flew out from the Economics Ministry, ordering the modernization of all facets of German industry. For his part, the War Minister ordered his subordinates' focus first on expanding their units to full training and proficiency before expanding the Reichswehr as a whole.
The Fuehrer's reorganization of the upper echelons of the Reich's government made many in both Party and Ministries nervous. Among the other orders emanating from Berlin early in 1936 was a categorical subordination of the police and all of the extrajudicial organs which had proliferated from the January 30th Revolution to the Justice Ministry under Franz Guertner. This was greeted with protest by Himmler, Heydrich, and Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, but this criticism was stifled by the Chancellor and Fuehrer's blunt statement that they could either accept the situation, or face investigation of their role in the extrajudicial system - charges which, it was not lost on Heydrich and Himmler especially, had been leveled at Ernst Roehm.
Figure 39: The most influential voices in the Reich Cabinet of January 1936
The Fuehrer had a separate meeting with Himmler, Heydrich, and the chief of military intelligence, Rear-Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. The Reich's intelligence situation, these three reported, was dire: they had essentially no intelligence system to mention outside of the Party's internal organs. Canaris drew a bleak picture of the Reich's intelligence apparatus, which the Chancellor overrode, ordering the intelligence organs into immediate operation in gathering information for the Eastern Question.
Minister Schwarz, meanwhile, began a series of measures meant to stimulate Germany's economy and strengthen German industry. According to an internal memorandum circulated from Schwarz to the leaders of the firms Krupp, Thyssen, Siemens, and Dr. Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank (who, according to contemporary accounts, was deeply offended that he was now receiving his marching orders from a "jumped-up Swabian records-clerk with no French"):
Schwarz, who had spent the pre-January 30th years as the Party treasurer and the ultimate voice in the Party's money matters, received General Becker of the Army's munitions research program on January 3rd, his third day in office. Becker asked Schwarz to consider the usefulness of large-scale calculating machines, geared to handle increasingly complex tasks - in short, to fund the work of Konrad Zuse, who was by now working for Becker in the basement of the Artillery School. Schwarz, as an old clerk, immediately saw some of the potential implications of Zuse's machine, and agreed to provide funding.
Figure 40: Reich research in 1936 focused exclusively on industrial applications.
As Schwarz ordered that German industry be restarted, von Blomberg took advantage of new conscription laws to begin the expansion of the Reichsheer's divisions to their full wartime strength. He received recommendations from each of the service chiefs, though he paid scant attention to General von Fritsch's memorandum on the strength of the Army - he had, after all, written the same report himself six months ago. From Admiral Raeder of the Reichsmarine, he received recommendations to establish a submarine school in direct contravention of the Versailles restrictions, and to scrap the two aging battleships Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein in favor of two modern battlecruisers; the two old cruisers were indeed so maintenance-intense that they were kept docked the majority of the time. The orders went forth, the hulls were decommissioned, and the Reichsmarine began its rebirth. The recommendations from General Goering were much more difficult to deal with: Goering wished to raise an infantry division for each of the Reich's major airports, and to deploy a Luftwaffe of fifty wings. Blomberg was willing to compromise and allow the expansion of the Reich's air infrastructure; a construction program would, after all, provide work for many Germans.
January and February were busy months in Berlin, but it would be difficult to see it from outside. Krupp Petrochemie, a subsidiary of the Essen steel firm, made inroads into Germany's continuing oil supply problem, but that was, again, far from the heart of the Reich. Siemens conducted radio experiments at research stations around the Reich's periphery, again out of sight. And in the basement of the Artillery School on Unter den Linden, relays clicked and whirred as Zuse continued his construction, out of sight of the world.
On February 27, the French and Sowjets announced that they had signed an accord, explicitly directed against the Reich. The Chancellor and Fuehrer was furious: the Reich's intelligence organs had given no warning. By the evening of Feburary 27, he had sent for Admiral Canaris and given him new orders, to proceed, as Kapitaen zur See Canaris, to assume command of the naval signals school in Kiel. His replacement was Major-General Eugen Ott. Ott had once been General Kurt Schleicher's personal adjutant, and had been the General's liaison with the future Chancellor in 1932-1933. Most recently, he had served in Tokyo as the military attache, a post he had filled since the death of President Hindenburg. Ott was, by all accounts, surprised by his recall, and the Japanese were suspicious of the sudden personnel change. They were only mollified by an extended personal telegram from the Fuehrer on the assassination of Prime Minister Saito.
The Chancellor also ordered the mobilization of two battalions of military engineers and police for dispatch into the Rhineland, an act which he privately admitted was more symbolic than effective. On March 7th, for the first time in almost twenty years, German troops entered the Rhineland. The following week was tense, but slowly the diplomatic response flowed in: Belgium congratulated Germany on "restoring her national dignity," in the words of King Leopold. France predictably claimed that the Franco-Sowjet Pact was strictly a defensive measure and that Germany had nothing to fear. Perhaps most ominously, a Sowjet cruiser docked in the IJsselmeer.
Figure 41: The Soviet cruiser Kirov, which visited the Netherlands in 1936
The remainder of the spring of 1936 passed without event; the Siemens firm invested extensively in hydroelectric dams in Afghanistan and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank proposed a radical revision of the Reich's monetary policy; Minister Schwarz considered it in great depth before approving Schacht's proposal with stiff restrictions and the elimination of the 1920s-era Rentenmark unofficial currency. Perhaps the most significant development of the year was the dispatch of a German military mission to China under Major-General von Falkenhausen. Officially their role was to advise and train Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalist army; unofficially their role was to test the next generation of the Reichswehr's equipment. They would spend three years in China, personnel rotating out as needed.
As German industry recovered, so too did German arms: the Luftwaffe received six of the fifty fighter squadrons for which General Goering had begged in the summer, and six more by winter. They were, admittedly, hopelessly outdated compared to the design which had surprised the world when it had overflown Berlin in 1935, but Messerschmitt continued to have problems with the revolutionary new fighter he was developing. More important, internationally, was the construction of DRMS Bismarck. The battleship was conceived and built in direct contravention of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935; once again, the Chancellor and Fuehrer called up the specter of the Franco-Sowjet Pact, and the Russian cruiser in Amsterdam.
Figure 42: Germany's security demanded that the Anglo-German Naval Agreement be abrogated.
Within a week, however, international reaction to Germany's naval rearmament was overshadowed by war in Spain.
Germany's reaction to the Spanish Civil War was immediate. As with General von Falkenhausen in China, the Luftwaffe began to form a military mission for dispatch to the Iberian Peninsula; even before the Luftwaffe mission was fully assembled, Minister Schwarz made a quiet economic deal: five thousand tons of military supplies, in exchange for three thousand tons of raw ores. The shipment proved far more prescient than the military mission - on August 13, 1936, the Nationalist government in Burgos surrendered to the Republicans.
Once again, the world's eyes turned to Berlin; three days after the news from Spain, the 1936 Olympics began. Germany won more medals in all categories than any other nation, and the unfounded fears among her neighbors that she would invade at any moment slowly receded.
Figure 43: Berlin's Olympic Stadium, 1936
Meanwhile, in the Artillery School basement, Zuse's engineers completed the Z3, a fully realized version of his mechanical computer, and turned its power on the diplomatic codes of Germany's neighbor Poland.
---
... And here I got a CTD, right after witnessing what I can only think of as "Third World Madness." The Allies versus Nicaragua versus Japan in a three-sided brawl which can only end badly for the poor Nicaraguans. Let's hope the madness doesn't permeate the autosave...
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Interesting update.
Too bad for the Spanish Nationalists.
And concerning Nicaragua: What the F***?
Too bad for the Spanish Nationalists.
And concerning Nicaragua: What the F***?
The Todt Organization dumped a lot of work in the '30s into updating Afghanistan's infrastructure, adn the Siemens people spent a lot of time in the same period building hydroelectric dams pretty much wherever anyone would pay them to do it. Unfortunately, I had a "d'oh" moment and forgot to screencapture the Afghanistan aid mission. You're right, though - not a lot of major rivers in Afghanistan. Of course, you could make the argument that Afghanistan is kind of like Texas in that regard, and the construction of dams creates both reservoirs and generators.
Besides, Nevada's not exactly known for its extensive river networks, either.
Now to find out if the autosave contains the seeds for the War of Nicaraguan Aggression...
EDIT - And the War of Nicaraguan Aggression appears to have been a game-crashing bug. Here's hoping it doesn't reoccur.
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The Todt Organization dumped a lot of work in the '30s into updating Afghanistan's infrastructure, adn the Siemens people spent a lot of time in the same period building hydroelectric dams pretty much wherever anyone would pay them to do it. Unfortunately, I had a "d'oh" moment and forgot to screencapture the Afghanistan aid mission. You're right, though - not a lot of major rivers in Afghanistan. Of course, you could make the argument that Afghanistan is kind of like Texas in that regard, and the construction of dams creates both reservoirs and generators.
Besides, Nevada's not exactly known for its extensive river networks, either.
You make a good point, although comparing landlocked Afghanistan to coastal Texas may not be a good comparision.
Nonetheless, I get what you are saying.
Depends on where in Texas. Out west really isn't too much of a stretch; southeast of the Balcones Fault... yeah, little too green for Afghanistan, and that's saying something, what with the drought and all. Of course, being alternately drought-prone and flood-prone is the reason that there are any dams in Texas to begin with - well, that and the Great Depression.
Anyway, 1937 is pretty much done; even got most of the post, up to the August Parteitag, written. It's a good year for the Fuehrer... provided nobody closes IE at home before I get to it...
Anyway, 1937 is pretty much done; even got most of the post, up to the August Parteitag, written. It's a good year for the Fuehrer... provided nobody closes IE at home before I get to it...
2. 1937 - The Year of Rearmament
Figure 44: PzKpfW III platoon maneuvers during divisional organization maneuvers, 4. Panzerdivision 1937
At the end of 1936, Germany could boast a substantially larger military than the Fuehrer had dreamed at the beginning of the year. Full-scale implementation both of police militarization, and of conscription, meant that they were well within reach of completing Field Marshal von Blomberg's projected plan for ground forces, and the industrious workers in the Reich's aviation industry had surprised all, including themselves, by fielding no fewer than twenty of the fifty new squadrons which General Goering demanded. Even the Reichsmarine had benefited from the year, with a dozen new submarines and a modernizing fleet of small surface combatants, in addition to the prospect of a well-equipped merchant marine which could be converted in a war emergency.
Figure 45: German military forces, January 1937
Indeed, the Reichswehr had so drastically expanded during the previous year that operational command of the Army had been divided into theater commands, with Field Marshal von Blomberg nominally holding the Polish-Silesian frontier command (Oberbefehlshaber Ost - trans.), General von Fritsch nominally holding the Dutch-Belgian-Danish frontier command (Oberbefehlshaber Nordwest), and General von Rundstedt holding the French frontier command (Oberbefehlshaber West). The Czech-Austrian frontier was neglected, as its defense was already overseen by Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler in his role as Police Leader. In addition to these regional commands, the Army included a reserve focused around Berlin-Potsdam, containing three armored divisions under SS-Gruppenfuehrer and Lieutenant-General Paul Hausser, and a cavalry division under Major-General Walther Busch.
The Chancellor and Fuehrer was so confident in the military situation, and its continued improvement, that he hosted a special conference at his Bavarian estate of Berchtesgaden. The meeting was recorded for posterity by the Fuehrer's military adjutant, a Colonel Hossbach. In attendance were men who had already been tapped to command the formative armored units of the Army and capital combatants of the Reichsmarine, operational and planning staff officers from all branches, and the ministers who normally comprised the entire cabinet.
Several who were present at the meeting report that General Ludwig Beck, who had until this point been serving as Chief of the General Staff, stood to protest the impossibility of these orders. The Fuehrer, by all reports, did not intervene, but Field Marshal von Blomberg demanded Beck's on the spot retraction, or his resignation. Beck chose to resign rather than recant, and in the confusion, General Erich Hoepner was appointed as Chief of the General Staff, with the mandate that he was to find a way to accomplish the Chancellor and Fuehrer's directives, no matter how difficult they might appear on the surface.
Figure 46: General Erich Hoepner, Chief of the General Staff, and his planning staff in 1937
Shortly after the Berghof Conference disbanded, Minister of Justice Franz Guertner privately approached the Fuehrer with his own resignation. He had, he explained, been offered a position as the head of the law faculty at Eberhard Karls Universitaet in Tuebingen. He recommended Walter Buch, the head of the Party's internal judiciary, as his replacement, further cementing the relationship between Party and State. The Fuehrer reluctantly approved both resignation and replacement.
Conspicuously absent from the Berghof Conference was General Karl Becker, who remained head of the Weapons Testing Office. Becker was in Stralsund at the time, overseeing the construction of facilities for Dornberger and von Braun's research group. On December 28th, 1936, he witnessed the successful launch of Dr.-Ing. von Braun's Aggregat-3 liquid-fueled rocket, which reached an altitude of 5,000 meters before deploying its parachute and returning its instrumentation to Earth. By all accounts, the celebrations of the successful launch eclipsed both the Christmas and New Year celebrations, and it was not until January 10th that Becker was able to return to Berlin to report on his findings.
Simultaneously with Becker's report of tremendous progress at Stralsund, the first General Staff study, dealing with France's probable reaction in the face of German moves in Poland, arrived. It concluded that the French were unlikely to respond directly, but that a western fortification to match the newly completed Maginot Line would help to dissuade the French from military intervention into Germany proper. Work on the Westwall began in mid-January of 1937, even as the French themselves extended their fortifications along the Belgian border in a clear disregard for Germany's repeated guarantees of Belgian sovereignty.
As part of the Chancellor and Fuehrer's new, aggressive policies, he dispatched a member of the Party's diplomatic wing, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Warsaw to inform the Polish government that the Fuehrer regretted that he could no longer guarantee Polish sovereignty in the face of the outrageous behavior of the Poles in the matter of Danzig. Simultaneously, the Fuehrer himself turned west, repeatedly demanding a conference between the European Powers to revise the territorial conditions of Versailles.
Figure 47: Colonial reparations were a key political issue in Germany in the 1930s
The spring passed deceptively quietly; when informed that the first armored divisions were slated for activation in June, the Fuehrer apparently looked at his calendar, pointed to July 1st, and said, "There." July 1st, therefore, was taken as the date for the invasion of Poland. International attention was diverted from Germany during this period by the explosion of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey; within Germany, this led to a shakeup of the Air Ministry as a scapegoat was sought for the explosion. The publication of Major-General Heinz Guderian's assessment of armored warfare, Achtung - Panzer!, was nearly completely overlooked worldwide; in Germany, however, it confirmed Guderian as the commander of one of the new armored corps.
The first three Panzerkorps were commanded by SS General Hausser, who had molded the original armored testing force in his image, Lieutenant-General Guderian, who had lobbied most strenuously for their formation, and Lieutenant-General von Manstein, who had been promoted over the heads of many, many more senior generals and had in the process made many enemies despite his undoubted brilliance. The three began joint maneuvers in June, and were projected to be ready for their role in Operation Ulrich, the planned invasion of Poland. All units were in place by midnight on the 30th of June, ready to cross the border. The only complication was a negotiation between Portugal and Germany for the use of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands, which resulted in large quantities of military supplies being sold to the Portuguese.
The invasion plan for Poland was quite simple: Keep all reinforcements from reaching Warsaw. A tremendous amount of fighting occurred on the war's periphery - Cracow especially proved resistant to the German offense - but in the end, the plan worked perfectly, with General von Rundstedt entering Warsaw on July 20th, 1937 and accepting the Polish surrender. In the scope of later campaigns, the Polish Campaign was unimpressive, but it showcased the Reichswehr's strengths: coordination, armor, and daring seizure of opportunities. Foreign observers took note - the Sowjets wre quick to protest their peaceful intentions, signing a non-aggression agreement on the 23rd. Documents from the Sowjet State Archives in Moscow reveal that Stalin was forced to cancel his plans for a complete political purge of his military.
Of the officers who distinguished themselves in the Polish Campaign, none stood out more than Lieutenant-General von Kluge, who had been commandant in East Prussia prior to the campaign. His efforts at tying Polish soldiers down in Suwalki preserved Warsaw from reinforcement, leaving it open for General von Rundstedt's dash into the city. Von Kluge and von Rundstedt were both promoted, with von Rundstedt receiving a marshal's baton for his exploit.
The Luftwaffe was not so fortunate, though its pilots admittedly flew an astonishing number of round-the-clock sorties; indeed, the Luftwaffe, flush with the massive expansion of the past two years, was experiencing a leadership shortage. In an effort to consolidate, talented generals such as Ernst Udet were promoted and given larger commands than their 1936 rank would have indicated.
An officer shortage, however dire it was, could not completely eliminate the feeling of satisfaction felt by General Goering and his subordinates over both the Polish Campaign, and the first delivery of the Messerschmitt Bf-109D. Initial reports from Poland said that the fighter was everything that had been hoped for since the first flights in 1935, though some pilots expressed reservations about its fragile landing gear on semi-improved fields such as captured at Lodz.
Figure 48: Nuremberg Rally grounds with Albert Speer's Cathedral of Light
It was therefore a thoroughly exultant Chancellor and Fuehrer who arrived at the annual Parteitag a month after the Polish surrender. The Rally of Unity (Reichsparteitag der Einheit - trans.) began on August 20th, and was the first major appearance of the Fuehrer following the end of Poland.
Figure 49: "Today Germany is ours - tomorrow the whole world!"
---
And I appear to have magically dodged the unhistorical-path event bullet. God only knows how.
Figure 44: PzKpfW III platoon maneuvers during divisional organization maneuvers, 4. Panzerdivision 1937
At the end of 1936, Germany could boast a substantially larger military than the Fuehrer had dreamed at the beginning of the year. Full-scale implementation both of police militarization, and of conscription, meant that they were well within reach of completing Field Marshal von Blomberg's projected plan for ground forces, and the industrious workers in the Reich's aviation industry had surprised all, including themselves, by fielding no fewer than twenty of the fifty new squadrons which General Goering demanded. Even the Reichsmarine had benefited from the year, with a dozen new submarines and a modernizing fleet of small surface combatants, in addition to the prospect of a well-equipped merchant marine which could be converted in a war emergency.
Figure 45: German military forces, January 1937
Indeed, the Reichswehr had so drastically expanded during the previous year that operational command of the Army had been divided into theater commands, with Field Marshal von Blomberg nominally holding the Polish-Silesian frontier command (Oberbefehlshaber Ost - trans.), General von Fritsch nominally holding the Dutch-Belgian-Danish frontier command (Oberbefehlshaber Nordwest), and General von Rundstedt holding the French frontier command (Oberbefehlshaber West). The Czech-Austrian frontier was neglected, as its defense was already overseen by Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler in his role as Police Leader. In addition to these regional commands, the Army included a reserve focused around Berlin-Potsdam, containing three armored divisions under SS-Gruppenfuehrer and Lieutenant-General Paul Hausser, and a cavalry division under Major-General Walther Busch.
The Chancellor and Fuehrer was so confident in the military situation, and its continued improvement, that he hosted a special conference at his Bavarian estate of Berchtesgaden. The meeting was recorded for posterity by the Fuehrer's military adjutant, a Colonel Hossbach. In attendance were men who had already been tapped to command the formative armored units of the Army and capital combatants of the Reichsmarine, operational and planning staff officers from all branches, and the ministers who normally comprised the entire cabinet.
Several who were present at the meeting report that General Ludwig Beck, who had until this point been serving as Chief of the General Staff, stood to protest the impossibility of these orders. The Fuehrer, by all reports, did not intervene, but Field Marshal von Blomberg demanded Beck's on the spot retraction, or his resignation. Beck chose to resign rather than recant, and in the confusion, General Erich Hoepner was appointed as Chief of the General Staff, with the mandate that he was to find a way to accomplish the Chancellor and Fuehrer's directives, no matter how difficult they might appear on the surface.
Figure 46: General Erich Hoepner, Chief of the General Staff, and his planning staff in 1937
Shortly after the Berghof Conference disbanded, Minister of Justice Franz Guertner privately approached the Fuehrer with his own resignation. He had, he explained, been offered a position as the head of the law faculty at Eberhard Karls Universitaet in Tuebingen. He recommended Walter Buch, the head of the Party's internal judiciary, as his replacement, further cementing the relationship between Party and State. The Fuehrer reluctantly approved both resignation and replacement.
Conspicuously absent from the Berghof Conference was General Karl Becker, who remained head of the Weapons Testing Office. Becker was in Stralsund at the time, overseeing the construction of facilities for Dornberger and von Braun's research group. On December 28th, 1936, he witnessed the successful launch of Dr.-Ing. von Braun's Aggregat-3 liquid-fueled rocket, which reached an altitude of 5,000 meters before deploying its parachute and returning its instrumentation to Earth. By all accounts, the celebrations of the successful launch eclipsed both the Christmas and New Year celebrations, and it was not until January 10th that Becker was able to return to Berlin to report on his findings.
Simultaneously with Becker's report of tremendous progress at Stralsund, the first General Staff study, dealing with France's probable reaction in the face of German moves in Poland, arrived. It concluded that the French were unlikely to respond directly, but that a western fortification to match the newly completed Maginot Line would help to dissuade the French from military intervention into Germany proper. Work on the Westwall began in mid-January of 1937, even as the French themselves extended their fortifications along the Belgian border in a clear disregard for Germany's repeated guarantees of Belgian sovereignty.
As part of the Chancellor and Fuehrer's new, aggressive policies, he dispatched a member of the Party's diplomatic wing, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Warsaw to inform the Polish government that the Fuehrer regretted that he could no longer guarantee Polish sovereignty in the face of the outrageous behavior of the Poles in the matter of Danzig. Simultaneously, the Fuehrer himself turned west, repeatedly demanding a conference between the European Powers to revise the territorial conditions of Versailles.
Figure 47: Colonial reparations were a key political issue in Germany in the 1930s
The spring passed deceptively quietly; when informed that the first armored divisions were slated for activation in June, the Fuehrer apparently looked at his calendar, pointed to July 1st, and said, "There." July 1st, therefore, was taken as the date for the invasion of Poland. International attention was diverted from Germany during this period by the explosion of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey; within Germany, this led to a shakeup of the Air Ministry as a scapegoat was sought for the explosion. The publication of Major-General Heinz Guderian's assessment of armored warfare, Achtung - Panzer!, was nearly completely overlooked worldwide; in Germany, however, it confirmed Guderian as the commander of one of the new armored corps.
The first three Panzerkorps were commanded by SS General Hausser, who had molded the original armored testing force in his image, Lieutenant-General Guderian, who had lobbied most strenuously for their formation, and Lieutenant-General von Manstein, who had been promoted over the heads of many, many more senior generals and had in the process made many enemies despite his undoubted brilliance. The three began joint maneuvers in June, and were projected to be ready for their role in Operation Ulrich, the planned invasion of Poland. All units were in place by midnight on the 30th of June, ready to cross the border. The only complication was a negotiation between Portugal and Germany for the use of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands, which resulted in large quantities of military supplies being sold to the Portuguese.
The invasion plan for Poland was quite simple: Keep all reinforcements from reaching Warsaw. A tremendous amount of fighting occurred on the war's periphery - Cracow especially proved resistant to the German offense - but in the end, the plan worked perfectly, with General von Rundstedt entering Warsaw on July 20th, 1937 and accepting the Polish surrender. In the scope of later campaigns, the Polish Campaign was unimpressive, but it showcased the Reichswehr's strengths: coordination, armor, and daring seizure of opportunities. Foreign observers took note - the Sowjets wre quick to protest their peaceful intentions, signing a non-aggression agreement on the 23rd. Documents from the Sowjet State Archives in Moscow reveal that Stalin was forced to cancel his plans for a complete political purge of his military.
Of the officers who distinguished themselves in the Polish Campaign, none stood out more than Lieutenant-General von Kluge, who had been commandant in East Prussia prior to the campaign. His efforts at tying Polish soldiers down in Suwalki preserved Warsaw from reinforcement, leaving it open for General von Rundstedt's dash into the city. Von Kluge and von Rundstedt were both promoted, with von Rundstedt receiving a marshal's baton for his exploit.
The Luftwaffe was not so fortunate, though its pilots admittedly flew an astonishing number of round-the-clock sorties; indeed, the Luftwaffe, flush with the massive expansion of the past two years, was experiencing a leadership shortage. In an effort to consolidate, talented generals such as Ernst Udet were promoted and given larger commands than their 1936 rank would have indicated.
An officer shortage, however dire it was, could not completely eliminate the feeling of satisfaction felt by General Goering and his subordinates over both the Polish Campaign, and the first delivery of the Messerschmitt Bf-109D. Initial reports from Poland said that the fighter was everything that had been hoped for since the first flights in 1935, though some pilots expressed reservations about its fragile landing gear on semi-improved fields such as captured at Lodz.
Figure 48: Nuremberg Rally grounds with Albert Speer's Cathedral of Light
It was therefore a thoroughly exultant Chancellor and Fuehrer who arrived at the annual Parteitag a month after the Polish surrender. The Rally of Unity (Reichsparteitag der Einheit - trans.) began on August 20th, and was the first major appearance of the Fuehrer following the end of Poland.
Figure 49: "Today Germany is ours - tomorrow the whole world!"
---
And I appear to have magically dodged the unhistorical-path event bullet. God only knows how.
Wow...you took out Poland in 1937.
If I may make a recommendation when you use these photos, I think you should paint out the original dates for these photos. That way, they don't contradict with the new dates you are giving them.
Figure 44: PzKpfW III platoon maneuvers during divisional organization maneuvers, 4. Panzerdivision 1937
If I may make a recommendation when you use these photos, I think you should paint out the original dates for these photos. That way, they don't contradict with the new dates you are giving them.
You made short work of Poland in 1937, impressive.
What is your belligerence score now?
What is your belligerence score now?
Now as in April of 1939? After Poland, Anschluss, Munich, Partition, Memel, and the invasion of Hungary... 51. It was 30-ish after Poland, down to 25 or so prior to Hitler's diplomatic offensive. For comparison, the US is around 20 after the disastrous Second Mexican War, and Japan and Nationalist China are both godawful because of their war of ages, which has displayed all the mobility of an especially dull day in World War I for the past three years. I suppose a News of the World update is due, plus a survey of Germany's occupation policies.
So, to make a long story short, Hitler's Balkan strategy seems to be paying off, except that the French have more tanks than I do by a long shot.
Regarding the pictures - I agree, but given that I'm pulling those directly off Wikimedia Commons links, I'm somewhat hamstrung about cutting the Bundesarchiv attributions.
Side note - if any of you paying attention on the thread know how to put umlauted characters in on a US keyboard without cutting and pasting from somewhere else, I'm all ears.
So, to make a long story short, Hitler's Balkan strategy seems to be paying off, except that the French have more tanks than I do by a long shot.
Regarding the pictures - I agree, but given that I'm pulling those directly off Wikimedia Commons links, I'm somewhat hamstrung about cutting the Bundesarchiv attributions.
Side note - if any of you paying attention on the thread know how to put umlauted characters in on a US keyboard without cutting and pasting from somewhere else, I'm all ears.
3. 1938-1939: The Foundation of Modern Europe
Figure 50: Generals von Rundstedt, von Fritsch, and von Blomberg, prewar photo
The beginning of 1938 saw a major crisis at the top of the War Ministry. Field Marshal von Blomberg, a widower since 1932, chose to marry his secretary, Erna Gruhn. The wedding was witnessed by both General Goering and the Fuehrer himself; the Fuehrer took the opportunity to present the couple with an extensive estate located close to his own Berghof near Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. Records from the wedding indicate that the Fuehrer gave a brief speech at the reception congratulating the general on his pretty young bride, warning the bride that the General was first and foremost married to Germany, and granting von Blomberg as long as he wished away from his duties for his honeymoon. Within weeks, an investigation by General Goering into the bride's background revealed that she had been involved in some questionable activities including a possible prostitution conviction in the 1920s. The record of Goering's presentation of the evidence to the Fuehrer survives.
Mere weeks later, a similar investigation conducted by the SS into the behavior of the commander in chief of the Army, General Werner von Fritsch. The evidence had already been produced in 1935, and the Fuehrer returned the files, when presented, unopened, with the comment that Germany's watchdogs had better things to bark at than their own masters.
Figure 51: The Blomberg-Fritsch affair saw a drastic weakening of the Goering-Himmler faction in the Reich's leadership
By March of 1938, it had become clear to all concerned that the political situation in Austria was intolerable. The Austrian government, organized on the Italian model, had suppressed both the "Home to the Reich" movement and the National Socialist Party, despite the Fuehrer's well-known birth ties to Austria. In 1934, the Austrian NSDAP had attempted to take matters into its own hands, but was foiled by the SA; this action against the Party was one of the key arguments indicting the SA in Germany that same year.
In 1934, the Chancellor and Fuehrer had not been ready to confront the Austrian government on the mistreatment of its subjects; in 1938, he was. In a series of conferences at the Berghof on the Austrian border, the Fuehrer met the Austrian Chancellor, Kurt Schussnigg, and laid out his complaints. Schussnigg agreed that they were eminently fair, and that perhaps a review of the situation regarding the Austrian NSDAP could be conducted. However, Schussnigg's review of the situation was excessive: he legalized both the NSDAP and all other competing parties, including those who had been responsible for the continuous waves of terrorism which had engulfed Austria since 1934. This was, of course, intolerable to the Fuehrer, who informed the Austrian Chancellor via telegram that Germany would not see her southern neighbor and fellow German nation descend into chaos and anarchy; Germany had already intervened once in Poland to protect the interests of Germans against Bolshevik terror, and would do so again if required.
It is difficult to extract from the Party and Foreign Ministry archives to what extent the German NSDAP controlled the Austrian NSDAP during this period; the Austrian Party had evolved underground during the period after 1934, and therefore its structure had much more in common with the Bolsheviks in pre-1917 Russia than with the German Party of the same period. As a result, saying with absolute certainty where individual cells' loyalty lay during the crucial days of early 1938 is impossible. What is known is that these Party cells contributed the vast majority of the "black" brigades of SS men in German Reichsheer service, and that their extensive experience of Austria and their military background made the insertion of large numbers of German soldiers into Austria in case of an emergency comparatively easy.
By March 10th, the "black" soldiers either directly controlled or had under observation nearly all of Austria's governmental institutions. On the 10th, facing pressure from all fronts to establish a government containing every party of the political spectrum, Chancellor Schussnigg resigned. Fearing for the worst and expecting Austria's political disintegration, the Fuehrer ordered troops along the Austrian border to a state of full readiness; late on the evening of the 11th, a telegram from the new Chancellor, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, arrived, inviting the German Reichsheer in to help re-establish order. By the 13th, the Fuehrer himself was in Vienna for the first time in twenty-four years.
Figure 52: Seyss-Inquart and the Fuehrer meet, March 1938
World reaction to the Anschluss was mixed. The Catholic Church within Austria approved wholeheartedly, especially after the Schussnigg Government's decision to allow the Communist Party a voice; however, the Vatican condemned the move, as did most of the Western governments. The Fuehrer chose this moment to replace Foreign Minister von Neurath with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Party's special deputy for diplomatic affairs. Von Neurath was instead sent to Austria to supervise that country's integration into Germany.
Figure 53: New Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (left) was given the important task of maintaining Germany's cordial foreign relations
Ribbentrop, who had traveled extensively abroad prior to coming into the government, was not a career diplomat, but had connections throughout much of the West. His promotion offended some within the Foreign Ministry; however, they were silenced by his effectiveness at persuading France and Britain that the Anschluss was merely the joining of two halves of the same family. He spent the spring and summer of 1938 tirelessly traveling to reassure foreign governments of the Reich's peaceful intentions. Ribbentrop's efforts were extremely fruitful: the Reich saw Ireland, Turkey, and Argentina drawn into the mutual-defense treaty which von Neurath had negotiated with Portugal following the Spanish collapse of 1936.
For his part, Constantin von Neurath was, according to his own memoirs, ready to leave the Ministry. His nerves had been under considerable strain ever since the Polish intervention of 1937, and when the opportunity to step down without disgrace arose, he gratefully leapt at what the Fuehrer offered. The government of Austria, he reasoned, was not the same as the government of an occupied territory, and the Austrians were class-conscious enough that being governed by a "von" made a difference and helped to assuage any lingering ill-will as Austria was transformed into the German province of Ostmark.
The Reich continued its rearmament throughout the year; the generals who had been promoted following the Polish Campaign found themselves in command of greatly expanded forces, and the Reich's police forces found themselves stretched to the limit to provide security in Poland, where banditry continued to plague the Reich. However, the primary focus of the 1938 armaments plan was not expansion, but modernization; research concluded during 1937 had produced a wide variety of new aircraft and vehicles which had to be standardized and forces trained for maximum effective use. The most famous of these are the Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt Bf-109-series, available in two models by the end of 1937, and fully deployed by the end of the Anschluss, and the Erma-designed MP37, a submachine gun which would prove the iconic weapon of the Reichswehr for the next several years.
Beginning at the 1938 Party Rally, called the Rally of Greater Germany, the Fuehrer again registered a strong diplomatic protest over the treatment of Germans in a foreign country, this time Czechoslovakia. The Czechs had been ignoring the fundamental right to autonomy of Germans in the Sudeten region bordering Germany and Austria, and the situation had become so intolerable that he was forced to appeal to the English and the French to mediate the crisis.
Deliberately leaked memoranda show that the Chancellor and Fuehrer had considered a recall of some three quarters of a million reservists during this period, but chose instead to place his faith in a diplomatic solution. The solution was the "four-power" conference in Munich, attended by the Germans, the French, the English, and the Italians to attempt a reconciliation of the Czech problem. Perhaps most significant was the willingness of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, to travel by air for the first time in his seventy-year life.
Figure 54: British Prime Minister Chamberlain and German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop converse at Munich, 1938
For most of September, the four major governments of Europe negotiated over the fate of the Sudetenland. Agreement was eventually reached that Germany would establish a protectorate over the Sudeten Germans, and that the Czechs would allow a Sudeten referendum concerning integration into the Reich. On September 30th, the conference concluded with the Czech acceptance of Germany's Sudeten protectorate pending a referendum on German sovereignty in the region. The referendum, unsurprisingly given the vehemence of the Sudeten German feeling on the subject, passed unequivocally.
Germany now began to prepare for the possibility of a real war; the Fuehrer held another Berghof Conference, this time laying out his strategic vision in greater depth. Germany first required control of the entire Balkan peninsula to secure her southern flank and provide the resources for an extended war against one of her two major foes, France or the Sowjets. Of these, intelligence indicated that the Sowjets were beset by a military system either dating back to Tsarist times, or by officers completely unproven in any real conflict. The French, however, could be compared to a crab: extensive fortifications protected the entire French border north of Switzerland, from the Rhine to the sea, and the French had seized quickly on the lessons of Poland, building an impressive armored force that, for the moment, outstripped Germany's.
As early as January, then, he began preparations for Operation Franz Joseph, the simultaneous destruction of Hungary and the rump Czech state. On March 15th, German troops poured into Prague, establishing a protectorate over the Czech portion of Czechoslovakia. The official explanation was that Czech stability had been threatened by by Slovak anarchists, and that German troops were merely there as peacekeepers; however, the fact that the German troops continued eastward from Prague and hooked quickly through Bratislava to occupy Budapest after a mere six-day struggle gave the lie to this. The Reichsheer saw another round of promotions and decorations: Generalleutnant von Manstein became General der Panzertruppen, Generalleutnant von Brauchitsch became General der Infanterie, and Gruppenfuehrer Hausser became Obergruppenfuehrer Hausser. Germany's days of negotiation were over and the period of armed struggle began.
The Fuehrer's goal at the time was to limit the scope of this struggle at any given moment; therefore he protested that the Hungarian actions had been merely a restoration of the pre-Versailles situation wherein Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary had all been ruled from Vienna. International reaction was somewhat skeptical, with Minister von Ribbentrop working ceaselessly to preserve Germany's good name even as the German government considered its next move.
The next move was even less spectacular than the six-day invasion of Hungary; the Holstein War with Denmark involved a mere armored corps under Lieutenant-General Rommel, lasted a grand total of three days, from September 22 to September 25, and saw Germany roundly triumphant over the Danes. Germany now had extensive occupied territories which must be governed somehow, and it was to this end that Germany began to establish what would become known as the "duchies."
---
What Really Happened:
I discovered that as part of the "partition Czechoslovakia with Hungary" option, the Hungarians essentially lose all international goodwill, guarantees, et cetera... then I discovered that the Danes, too, lacked a diplomatic shield. Unfortunately, these wars were so short that you get no screen grabs. I've left technology out of this particular update, because frankly it deserves its own special update.
Figure 50: Generals von Rundstedt, von Fritsch, and von Blomberg, prewar photo
The beginning of 1938 saw a major crisis at the top of the War Ministry. Field Marshal von Blomberg, a widower since 1932, chose to marry his secretary, Erna Gruhn. The wedding was witnessed by both General Goering and the Fuehrer himself; the Fuehrer took the opportunity to present the couple with an extensive estate located close to his own Berghof near Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. Records from the wedding indicate that the Fuehrer gave a brief speech at the reception congratulating the general on his pretty young bride, warning the bride that the General was first and foremost married to Germany, and granting von Blomberg as long as he wished away from his duties for his honeymoon. Within weeks, an investigation by General Goering into the bride's background revealed that she had been involved in some questionable activities including a possible prostitution conviction in the 1920s. The record of Goering's presentation of the evidence to the Fuehrer survives.
Mere weeks later, a similar investigation conducted by the SS into the behavior of the commander in chief of the Army, General Werner von Fritsch. The evidence had already been produced in 1935, and the Fuehrer returned the files, when presented, unopened, with the comment that Germany's watchdogs had better things to bark at than their own masters.
Figure 51: The Blomberg-Fritsch affair saw a drastic weakening of the Goering-Himmler faction in the Reich's leadership
By March of 1938, it had become clear to all concerned that the political situation in Austria was intolerable. The Austrian government, organized on the Italian model, had suppressed both the "Home to the Reich" movement and the National Socialist Party, despite the Fuehrer's well-known birth ties to Austria. In 1934, the Austrian NSDAP had attempted to take matters into its own hands, but was foiled by the SA; this action against the Party was one of the key arguments indicting the SA in Germany that same year.
In 1934, the Chancellor and Fuehrer had not been ready to confront the Austrian government on the mistreatment of its subjects; in 1938, he was. In a series of conferences at the Berghof on the Austrian border, the Fuehrer met the Austrian Chancellor, Kurt Schussnigg, and laid out his complaints. Schussnigg agreed that they were eminently fair, and that perhaps a review of the situation regarding the Austrian NSDAP could be conducted. However, Schussnigg's review of the situation was excessive: he legalized both the NSDAP and all other competing parties, including those who had been responsible for the continuous waves of terrorism which had engulfed Austria since 1934. This was, of course, intolerable to the Fuehrer, who informed the Austrian Chancellor via telegram that Germany would not see her southern neighbor and fellow German nation descend into chaos and anarchy; Germany had already intervened once in Poland to protect the interests of Germans against Bolshevik terror, and would do so again if required.
It is difficult to extract from the Party and Foreign Ministry archives to what extent the German NSDAP controlled the Austrian NSDAP during this period; the Austrian Party had evolved underground during the period after 1934, and therefore its structure had much more in common with the Bolsheviks in pre-1917 Russia than with the German Party of the same period. As a result, saying with absolute certainty where individual cells' loyalty lay during the crucial days of early 1938 is impossible. What is known is that these Party cells contributed the vast majority of the "black" brigades of SS men in German Reichsheer service, and that their extensive experience of Austria and their military background made the insertion of large numbers of German soldiers into Austria in case of an emergency comparatively easy.
By March 10th, the "black" soldiers either directly controlled or had under observation nearly all of Austria's governmental institutions. On the 10th, facing pressure from all fronts to establish a government containing every party of the political spectrum, Chancellor Schussnigg resigned. Fearing for the worst and expecting Austria's political disintegration, the Fuehrer ordered troops along the Austrian border to a state of full readiness; late on the evening of the 11th, a telegram from the new Chancellor, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, arrived, inviting the German Reichsheer in to help re-establish order. By the 13th, the Fuehrer himself was in Vienna for the first time in twenty-four years.
Figure 52: Seyss-Inquart and the Fuehrer meet, March 1938
World reaction to the Anschluss was mixed. The Catholic Church within Austria approved wholeheartedly, especially after the Schussnigg Government's decision to allow the Communist Party a voice; however, the Vatican condemned the move, as did most of the Western governments. The Fuehrer chose this moment to replace Foreign Minister von Neurath with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Party's special deputy for diplomatic affairs. Von Neurath was instead sent to Austria to supervise that country's integration into Germany.
Figure 53: New Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (left) was given the important task of maintaining Germany's cordial foreign relations
Ribbentrop, who had traveled extensively abroad prior to coming into the government, was not a career diplomat, but had connections throughout much of the West. His promotion offended some within the Foreign Ministry; however, they were silenced by his effectiveness at persuading France and Britain that the Anschluss was merely the joining of two halves of the same family. He spent the spring and summer of 1938 tirelessly traveling to reassure foreign governments of the Reich's peaceful intentions. Ribbentrop's efforts were extremely fruitful: the Reich saw Ireland, Turkey, and Argentina drawn into the mutual-defense treaty which von Neurath had negotiated with Portugal following the Spanish collapse of 1936.
For his part, Constantin von Neurath was, according to his own memoirs, ready to leave the Ministry. His nerves had been under considerable strain ever since the Polish intervention of 1937, and when the opportunity to step down without disgrace arose, he gratefully leapt at what the Fuehrer offered. The government of Austria, he reasoned, was not the same as the government of an occupied territory, and the Austrians were class-conscious enough that being governed by a "von" made a difference and helped to assuage any lingering ill-will as Austria was transformed into the German province of Ostmark.
The Reich continued its rearmament throughout the year; the generals who had been promoted following the Polish Campaign found themselves in command of greatly expanded forces, and the Reich's police forces found themselves stretched to the limit to provide security in Poland, where banditry continued to plague the Reich. However, the primary focus of the 1938 armaments plan was not expansion, but modernization; research concluded during 1937 had produced a wide variety of new aircraft and vehicles which had to be standardized and forces trained for maximum effective use. The most famous of these are the Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt Bf-109-series, available in two models by the end of 1937, and fully deployed by the end of the Anschluss, and the Erma-designed MP37, a submachine gun which would prove the iconic weapon of the Reichswehr for the next several years.
Beginning at the 1938 Party Rally, called the Rally of Greater Germany, the Fuehrer again registered a strong diplomatic protest over the treatment of Germans in a foreign country, this time Czechoslovakia. The Czechs had been ignoring the fundamental right to autonomy of Germans in the Sudeten region bordering Germany and Austria, and the situation had become so intolerable that he was forced to appeal to the English and the French to mediate the crisis.
Deliberately leaked memoranda show that the Chancellor and Fuehrer had considered a recall of some three quarters of a million reservists during this period, but chose instead to place his faith in a diplomatic solution. The solution was the "four-power" conference in Munich, attended by the Germans, the French, the English, and the Italians to attempt a reconciliation of the Czech problem. Perhaps most significant was the willingness of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, to travel by air for the first time in his seventy-year life.
Figure 54: British Prime Minister Chamberlain and German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop converse at Munich, 1938
For most of September, the four major governments of Europe negotiated over the fate of the Sudetenland. Agreement was eventually reached that Germany would establish a protectorate over the Sudeten Germans, and that the Czechs would allow a Sudeten referendum concerning integration into the Reich. On September 30th, the conference concluded with the Czech acceptance of Germany's Sudeten protectorate pending a referendum on German sovereignty in the region. The referendum, unsurprisingly given the vehemence of the Sudeten German feeling on the subject, passed unequivocally.
Germany now began to prepare for the possibility of a real war; the Fuehrer held another Berghof Conference, this time laying out his strategic vision in greater depth. Germany first required control of the entire Balkan peninsula to secure her southern flank and provide the resources for an extended war against one of her two major foes, France or the Sowjets. Of these, intelligence indicated that the Sowjets were beset by a military system either dating back to Tsarist times, or by officers completely unproven in any real conflict. The French, however, could be compared to a crab: extensive fortifications protected the entire French border north of Switzerland, from the Rhine to the sea, and the French had seized quickly on the lessons of Poland, building an impressive armored force that, for the moment, outstripped Germany's.
As early as January, then, he began preparations for Operation Franz Joseph, the simultaneous destruction of Hungary and the rump Czech state. On March 15th, German troops poured into Prague, establishing a protectorate over the Czech portion of Czechoslovakia. The official explanation was that Czech stability had been threatened by by Slovak anarchists, and that German troops were merely there as peacekeepers; however, the fact that the German troops continued eastward from Prague and hooked quickly through Bratislava to occupy Budapest after a mere six-day struggle gave the lie to this. The Reichsheer saw another round of promotions and decorations: Generalleutnant von Manstein became General der Panzertruppen, Generalleutnant von Brauchitsch became General der Infanterie, and Gruppenfuehrer Hausser became Obergruppenfuehrer Hausser. Germany's days of negotiation were over and the period of armed struggle began.
The Fuehrer's goal at the time was to limit the scope of this struggle at any given moment; therefore he protested that the Hungarian actions had been merely a restoration of the pre-Versailles situation wherein Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary had all been ruled from Vienna. International reaction was somewhat skeptical, with Minister von Ribbentrop working ceaselessly to preserve Germany's good name even as the German government considered its next move.
The next move was even less spectacular than the six-day invasion of Hungary; the Holstein War with Denmark involved a mere armored corps under Lieutenant-General Rommel, lasted a grand total of three days, from September 22 to September 25, and saw Germany roundly triumphant over the Danes. Germany now had extensive occupied territories which must be governed somehow, and it was to this end that Germany began to establish what would become known as the "duchies."
---
What Really Happened:
I discovered that as part of the "partition Czechoslovakia with Hungary" option, the Hungarians essentially lose all international goodwill, guarantees, et cetera... then I discovered that the Danes, too, lacked a diplomatic shield. Unfortunately, these wars were so short that you get no screen grabs. I've left technology out of this particular update, because frankly it deserves its own special update.
Figure 51: The Blomberg-Fritsch affair saw a drastic weakening of the Goering-Himmler faction in the Reich's leadership
How do the increases in national dissent and Democratic shifts affect you overall?
Minimally. Blomberg-Fritsch fires basically right before Anschluss/Munich/Czech partition; those events combine to strengthen one-party authority and bleed away any dissent issues you might have. By the time Blomberg-Fritsch happens, Germany is pretty much fully recovered from the crazy early-game dissent problems (20%-ish).
I had an in-game post ready to roll, but it appears to have gotten eaten, which is frustrating given that it was already kind of a "here's what happens prior to Barbarossa" anyway, and therefore was pretty dull, except for the Second Mexican War. I'm going to see if I have a save from that period, because if I do, it's worth reloading just to grab a screenshot of the Mexican Army in Cleveland, Ohio.
I had an in-game post ready to roll, but it appears to have gotten eaten, which is frustrating given that it was already kind of a "here's what happens prior to Barbarossa" anyway, and therefore was pretty dull, except for the Second Mexican War. I'm going to see if I have a save from that period, because if I do, it's worth reloading just to grab a screenshot of the Mexican Army in Cleveland, Ohio.
What mod are you using? Was the Second Mexican War event-fired, or just an incredibly random slip by the US AI?
Road to Doom's Day, with some hand-modifications on my part like extra ministers and some techtree tweaks (removing tech requirements that don't exist and the occasional savegame edit to correct things like a sustained nuclear reaction giving me fusion bombs rather than the dirty/semi/fission line). The Second Mexican War is event-fired, but the event isn't as dramatic as it sounds; it was fired by the Mexican choice to nationalize foreign assets in Mexico, which fired on Jan 29, '39. The American response choice is either accept it, or declare war. In this case, Roosevelt declared war. Unfortunately, because RDD is built on a partial HSR foundation, the US starts off able to build headquarters and garrisons, and precious few of either of those. Result is that the Mexican army swept pretty much unopposed from the Mexican border to the Great Lakes. The US government actually accepted peace at pretty much the same time that it got boots on the ground. From 1939-1941, therefore, the US-Mexican border looked a lot like the pre-1845 border, though after Japan's usual bonehead move, which fired Feb '42, all of that flipped back (chalk another one up to Wendell Wilkie, Nathan - he recovered by diplomacy what Roosevelt lost by military action ). I loaded my post-Hungarian conquest benchmark and got a screenshot of the April '39 post-treaty US frontier, which will make a nice comparison with Germany's post-Case Franz Joseph border.
I've deviated from the traditional "Case (color)" name in favor of historical figures; however, I'm a bit shy in some areas. Here's the preliminary list, pending my next update:
Poland: Case Ulrich (Teutonic Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen)
Austria: Case Otto (shelved by Anschluss)
Czechoslovakia: Case Leopold (folded into Case Franz Joseph)
Hungary: Case Franz Joseph
Denmark: Case Ernst (founder of German branch of Schleswig-Holstein ducal house)
Yugoslavia: Case Franz Ferdinand
Romania: Case Karl (Karl Hohenzollern, King of the Romanians)
Bulgaria: Case Basil (Basil II of E. Roman Empire, not a lot of Germans in Bulgaria)
Greece: Case Lykurgos (Lawgiver of Sparta)
Baltic: Case Albrecht (Albrecht von Brandenburg, H.u.D. until secularization of Teutonic order)
... And after that comes 1943: The Year.
EDIT - One point that stands out from this is that operational security goes out the window the moment you start using names like this. Exactly when, for instance, is "Case Lykurgos" going to be the invasion of Belgium? The answer to this is that Germany is an intensely (10/10) closed society with very good communications security (encrypt/decrypt techs ahead of year and no Polish transfer of an Enigma to England in '39).
EDIT2 - Japan declared war on everyone under the sun in February 1942, not February 1941. Corrected.
). I loaded my post-Hungarian conquest benchmark and got a screenshot of the April '39 post-treaty US frontier, which will make a nice comparison with Germany's post-Case Franz Joseph border.I've deviated from the traditional "Case (color)" name in favor of historical figures; however, I'm a bit shy in some areas. Here's the preliminary list, pending my next update:
Poland: Case Ulrich (Teutonic Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen)
Austria: Case Otto (shelved by Anschluss)
Czechoslovakia: Case Leopold (folded into Case Franz Joseph)
Hungary: Case Franz Joseph
Denmark: Case Ernst (founder of German branch of Schleswig-Holstein ducal house)
Yugoslavia: Case Franz Ferdinand
Romania: Case Karl (Karl Hohenzollern, King of the Romanians)
Bulgaria: Case Basil (Basil II of E. Roman Empire, not a lot of Germans in Bulgaria)
Greece: Case Lykurgos (Lawgiver of Sparta)
Baltic: Case Albrecht (Albrecht von Brandenburg, H.u.D. until secularization of Teutonic order)
... And after that comes 1943: The Year.
EDIT - One point that stands out from this is that operational security goes out the window the moment you start using names like this. Exactly when, for instance, is "Case Lykurgos" going to be the invasion of Belgium? The answer to this is that Germany is an intensely (10/10) closed society with very good communications security (encrypt/decrypt techs ahead of year and no Polish transfer of an Enigma to England in '39).
EDIT2 - Japan declared war on everyone under the sun in February 1942, not February 1941. Corrected.
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The Second Mexican War is event-fired, but the event isn't as dramatic as it sounds; it was fired by the Mexican choice to nationalize foreign assets in Mexico, which fired on Jan 29, '39. The American response choice is either accept it, or declare war. In this case, Roosevelt declared war. Unfortunately, because RDD is built on a partial HSR foundation, the US starts off able to build headquarters and garrisons, and precious few of either of those. Result is that the Mexican army swept pretty much unopposed from the Mexican border to the Great Lakes. The US government actually accepted peace at pretty much the same time that it got boots on the ground. From 1939-1941, therefore, the US-Mexican border looked a lot like the pre-1845 border, though after Japan's usual bonehead move, which fired Feb '42, all of that flipped back (chalk another one up to Wendell Wilkie, Nathan - he recovered by diplomacy what Roosevelt lost by military action
The Second Mexican War...Landon couldn't win it...Roosevelt couldn't win it...Willkie managed to win it (sort of). This makes my night.
I am impressed you found all these names.
V. The War Years
Figure 55: Greater Germany in April 1939
1. Springtime for Hitler
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
One common question in Western historical circles post-war has been why the Chamberlain Government in Britain and the Daladier Government in France failed to act in any fashion whatsoever when Germany abrogated the terms of the Munich Agreement. The answer is fairly simple: The Western governments were distracted by affairs elsewhere. Even before the decision to execute Case Franz Joseph and occupy Hungary in addition to Czechoslovakia, thereby restoring much of the pre-Versailles Habsburg Empire under properly German leadership, events in the United States had eclipsed Germany in British and French eyes.
Figure 56: Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas announcing the nationalization of foreign assets in Mexico
Over the waning days of 1938, the Mexican government nationalized all foreign businesses in the country, beginning with foreign oil. The Cardenas government expected strong foreign condemnation; what it had not expected was a declaration of war by the United States on January 29, 1939, acting to protect the capitalist interests which drove the country. Upon hearing of the American decision, Cardenas took to the radio once more.
Incredibly, it worked. The consensus among historians is that the United States Army was singularly ill-equipped for fighting at the beginning of 1939. The Mexican Army therefore enjoyed considerable success, encircling Chicago by mid-March despite its relatively small size. Only at about this time did the first American units capable of organized resistance form; General Patton's Appalachian Campaign proved to be the only real "fighting" of the war, while General MacArthur in Louisiana effectively stopped the Mexican advance at New Orleans by his mere presence.
However, the damage was done. On March 12th, a flight of Mexican bombers took off from St. Louis, Missouri. Their mission was daring and potentially foolhardy; however, the United States had neglected aviation as thoroughly as it had neglected a land army. The first warning that the Americans had of the Mexicans' intent was when the twelve bombers each released their light payload on the White House lawn. The President, badly shaken, called former Ambassador Josephus Daniels, ordering him to negotiate a settlement.
The Treaty of Corpus Christi was signed two weeks later, effectively dooming the Roosevelt Presidency and any chances that Roosevelt's party had of holding office in the foreseeable future. The Mexican government agreed to yield most of the land which it had occupied, in exchange for a partial restitution of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The United States retained the Texas coast and most of California; however, Mexican garrisons were to remain in parts of Colorado and the American state of New Mexico for several more years.
Figure 57: The outcome of the Treaty of Corpus Christi, 1939
The political fallout for President Roosevelt was immense; the remainder of his administration was tainted by the Second Mexican-American War and the wide, and justified feeling, that the United States had panicked in its negotiations with Mexico. Roosevelt's last year and a half in office achieved very little, and when the 1940 election arose, he made only a token effort to challenge the Republican nominee, Wendell Willkie, who came into office largely on a platform of undoing the Treaty of Corpus Christi in favor of a more reasonable settlement.
Figure 58: Wendell Willkie, 33rd President of the United States
THE SPRING WARS
For several years, German foreign policy was, ironically, more dependant on weather than any government inclinations. This weather dependancy was because Germany's greatest weapon, the armored forces pioneered in 1937 and fully developed since, were at their best on firm, un-frozen ground. In 1939, they had quickly overrun Hungary and Denmark in an effort to consolidate the Reich's borders. Case Franz Joseph, the invasion of Hungary, gives a template for the ideal war, according to the foremost proponent of this style of warfare, General Guderian.
Franz Joseph consisted of a turning movement through Bratislava spearheaded by a force of six to ten armored and a similar number of motorized divisions, combined with a general offensive by two dozen infantry divisions along the Austro-Hungarian border designed to pin the Hungarian army in place, and a number of limited actions along the Polish-Slovakian frontier aimed at providing the soldiers involved valuable experience. Such elements that could not be fixed in place by direct ground contact were instead subjected to intensive aerial bombardment while the maneuver units achieved their objectives. The result was that Budapest was taken by German soldiers before the Hungarian army had been fully notified of invasion.
Franz Joseph also marked the first military appearance of fully SS-based units with no Army component whatsoever. This was the debut of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, formed under the aegis of the Fuehrer's longtime bodyguard, chauffeur, and personal pilot, Gruppenfuehrer Joseph "Sepp" Dietrich, who had been a non-commissioned officer in a Great War armored unit. The LSSAH was the first, but not the last, of the SS formations, and it displayed a remarkable adaptability given its reputation among the Reichswehr as a parade-ground unit.
The next use of the Reichswehr to adjust the Reich's borders to reflect the Fuehrer's vision for Greater Germany was Jugoslavia; in April of 1940, the Chancellor and Fuehrer ordered the execution of Case Franz Ferdinand, again spearheaded by General Guderian. The operation was facilitated by the relative proximity of Budapest and Belgrade: again, there were actions along the frontier completely unrelated to the main thrust, meant to blood untrained units, but the armored thrust for the heart was the key to German military thought during this period. However, Franz Ferdinand also saw the inclusion of a heretofore unknown element: Lieutenant-General Julius Ringel led a daring coup de main airborne assault on Belgrade that secured the city before General Guderian's armored forces could penetrate all the way to the city, the first of many such operations which Ringel would lead.
The former Jugoslavia was divided into a number of Gaue, analogous to the Reich's and conforming roughly into the region's traditional divisions of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro. The Navy was granted extensive influence in the region, as it would be the first base provided to Germany's Mediterranean Fleet, which remains headquartered at Split, in Croatia. Meanwhile, the development of the "April Wars" doctrine continued.
Romania was the next country overrun by Guderian's armor, in April of 1941; the lieutenant-general burned to be promoted to equality with von Manstein and Hausser, who had eclipsed him following Hungary and had been concentrating more on training than on active operations as a result. General Guderian was to a great extent the victim of his own success; his armored forces appeared too swiftly for any coordinated defense, and therefore while his talents were widely admired, they were not considered worthy of promotion. The annexation to the Reich of Romania brought with it the great oil works at Ploesti, greatly easing Field Marshal von Blomberg's concern regarding the supply of the armored forces in wartime.
Each of these short wars was of course accompanied by some foreign protest; however, by 1941, even the Chamberlain Government had grown used to the Reich's April Wars. In Britain, the General Election of 1941 loomed on the political horizon, with many in the Conservative Party feeling that under Prime Minister Chamberlain, Britain had failed to be sufficiently assertive in European affairs. Chamberlain, for his part, was badly ill, the cancer which would claim his life in a matter of months relieving him of any duty to campaign on the Conservative cause. No other Conservative was believed to have the stature required to follow Chamberlain. The Conservative Party therefore chose to tap three-term Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin as their voice; despite his creation as an earl in 1937 and his personal unwillingness, when called upon, Baldwin helped the Conservatives to retain control of the government and was instated as Prime Minister just in time to respond to the Japanese declaration of war in February, 1942.
Figure 59: Stanley Baldwin, Britain's wartime Prime Minister
Baldwin's essential policy position on Germany was summed up by a quote shortly after the Munich Agreement: "Can't we turn Hitler East? Napoleon broke himself against the Russians. Hitler might do the same." As a result, Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop was both surprised and gratified to receive a series of communiques that indicated that the Reich had nothing to fear regarding its foreign policy, so long as it was focused on the Balkans and Russia. Thus it was that, even as his government was involved in knitting together an alliance of all of the American powers including the United States, Prime Minister Baldwin maintained a decorous silence through April and May of 1942.
When the General Staff gave the order for the simultaneous execution of Case Basil in Bulgaria, and Case Albrecht in the Baltic, many outside the Fuehrer's War Cabinet were very surprised; however, the moves were seen as important to the protection of the Ploesti fields, and the shortening of the distance from the border to Leningrad and Moscow. This time, General Guderian had to deal with the difficult terrain around Sofia, Bulgaria; along the Black Sea coast, Lieutenant-General von Paulus led a surprisingly spirited dash to capture Varna and succeeded in linking up with Guderian just as the latter reached Sofia.
The two of them repositioned their forces on the Greek border just in time for the order to come down for Case Lykurgos, the occupation of Greece. This time the terrain was fully against General Guderian; however, he made the dash from Sofia to Athens in two weeks, through determined Greek resistance the whole way, without losing more than a dozen men and one tank. For this feat, Guderian finally received his coveted promotion to General der Panzertruppen.
In the north, General Hausser's assault through the Baltic, assisted by Lieutenant-General Becker, who had, in addition to his other duties, assumed command of an infantry corps by now, and two new SS generals, Gruppenfuehrer Eicke and Steiner, was hampered only by mud; despite the twenty divisions Lithuania alone fielded, they were swept aside by Hausser's thrust.
This concluded the period known as the April Wars; the Fuehrer had already decided that 1943 would be the decisive year in the struggle against international Slav-Bolshevism.
Figure 55: Greater Germany in April 1939
1. Springtime for Hitler
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
One common question in Western historical circles post-war has been why the Chamberlain Government in Britain and the Daladier Government in France failed to act in any fashion whatsoever when Germany abrogated the terms of the Munich Agreement. The answer is fairly simple: The Western governments were distracted by affairs elsewhere. Even before the decision to execute Case Franz Joseph and occupy Hungary in addition to Czechoslovakia, thereby restoring much of the pre-Versailles Habsburg Empire under properly German leadership, events in the United States had eclipsed Germany in British and French eyes.
Figure 56: Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas announcing the nationalization of foreign assets in Mexico
Over the waning days of 1938, the Mexican government nationalized all foreign businesses in the country, beginning with foreign oil. The Cardenas government expected strong foreign condemnation; what it had not expected was a declaration of war by the United States on January 29, 1939, acting to protect the capitalist interests which drove the country. Upon hearing of the American decision, Cardenas took to the radio once more.
Incredibly, it worked. The consensus among historians is that the United States Army was singularly ill-equipped for fighting at the beginning of 1939. The Mexican Army therefore enjoyed considerable success, encircling Chicago by mid-March despite its relatively small size. Only at about this time did the first American units capable of organized resistance form; General Patton's Appalachian Campaign proved to be the only real "fighting" of the war, while General MacArthur in Louisiana effectively stopped the Mexican advance at New Orleans by his mere presence.
However, the damage was done. On March 12th, a flight of Mexican bombers took off from St. Louis, Missouri. Their mission was daring and potentially foolhardy; however, the United States had neglected aviation as thoroughly as it had neglected a land army. The first warning that the Americans had of the Mexicans' intent was when the twelve bombers each released their light payload on the White House lawn. The President, badly shaken, called former Ambassador Josephus Daniels, ordering him to negotiate a settlement.
The Treaty of Corpus Christi was signed two weeks later, effectively dooming the Roosevelt Presidency and any chances that Roosevelt's party had of holding office in the foreseeable future. The Mexican government agreed to yield most of the land which it had occupied, in exchange for a partial restitution of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The United States retained the Texas coast and most of California; however, Mexican garrisons were to remain in parts of Colorado and the American state of New Mexico for several more years.
Figure 57: The outcome of the Treaty of Corpus Christi, 1939
The political fallout for President Roosevelt was immense; the remainder of his administration was tainted by the Second Mexican-American War and the wide, and justified feeling, that the United States had panicked in its negotiations with Mexico. Roosevelt's last year and a half in office achieved very little, and when the 1940 election arose, he made only a token effort to challenge the Republican nominee, Wendell Willkie, who came into office largely on a platform of undoing the Treaty of Corpus Christi in favor of a more reasonable settlement.
Figure 58: Wendell Willkie, 33rd President of the United States
THE SPRING WARS
For several years, German foreign policy was, ironically, more dependant on weather than any government inclinations. This weather dependancy was because Germany's greatest weapon, the armored forces pioneered in 1937 and fully developed since, were at their best on firm, un-frozen ground. In 1939, they had quickly overrun Hungary and Denmark in an effort to consolidate the Reich's borders. Case Franz Joseph, the invasion of Hungary, gives a template for the ideal war, according to the foremost proponent of this style of warfare, General Guderian.
Franz Joseph consisted of a turning movement through Bratislava spearheaded by a force of six to ten armored and a similar number of motorized divisions, combined with a general offensive by two dozen infantry divisions along the Austro-Hungarian border designed to pin the Hungarian army in place, and a number of limited actions along the Polish-Slovakian frontier aimed at providing the soldiers involved valuable experience. Such elements that could not be fixed in place by direct ground contact were instead subjected to intensive aerial bombardment while the maneuver units achieved their objectives. The result was that Budapest was taken by German soldiers before the Hungarian army had been fully notified of invasion.
Franz Joseph also marked the first military appearance of fully SS-based units with no Army component whatsoever. This was the debut of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, formed under the aegis of the Fuehrer's longtime bodyguard, chauffeur, and personal pilot, Gruppenfuehrer Joseph "Sepp" Dietrich, who had been a non-commissioned officer in a Great War armored unit. The LSSAH was the first, but not the last, of the SS formations, and it displayed a remarkable adaptability given its reputation among the Reichswehr as a parade-ground unit.
The next use of the Reichswehr to adjust the Reich's borders to reflect the Fuehrer's vision for Greater Germany was Jugoslavia; in April of 1940, the Chancellor and Fuehrer ordered the execution of Case Franz Ferdinand, again spearheaded by General Guderian. The operation was facilitated by the relative proximity of Budapest and Belgrade: again, there were actions along the frontier completely unrelated to the main thrust, meant to blood untrained units, but the armored thrust for the heart was the key to German military thought during this period. However, Franz Ferdinand also saw the inclusion of a heretofore unknown element: Lieutenant-General Julius Ringel led a daring coup de main airborne assault on Belgrade that secured the city before General Guderian's armored forces could penetrate all the way to the city, the first of many such operations which Ringel would lead.
The former Jugoslavia was divided into a number of Gaue, analogous to the Reich's and conforming roughly into the region's traditional divisions of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro. The Navy was granted extensive influence in the region, as it would be the first base provided to Germany's Mediterranean Fleet, which remains headquartered at Split, in Croatia. Meanwhile, the development of the "April Wars" doctrine continued.
Romania was the next country overrun by Guderian's armor, in April of 1941; the lieutenant-general burned to be promoted to equality with von Manstein and Hausser, who had eclipsed him following Hungary and had been concentrating more on training than on active operations as a result. General Guderian was to a great extent the victim of his own success; his armored forces appeared too swiftly for any coordinated defense, and therefore while his talents were widely admired, they were not considered worthy of promotion. The annexation to the Reich of Romania brought with it the great oil works at Ploesti, greatly easing Field Marshal von Blomberg's concern regarding the supply of the armored forces in wartime.
Each of these short wars was of course accompanied by some foreign protest; however, by 1941, even the Chamberlain Government had grown used to the Reich's April Wars. In Britain, the General Election of 1941 loomed on the political horizon, with many in the Conservative Party feeling that under Prime Minister Chamberlain, Britain had failed to be sufficiently assertive in European affairs. Chamberlain, for his part, was badly ill, the cancer which would claim his life in a matter of months relieving him of any duty to campaign on the Conservative cause. No other Conservative was believed to have the stature required to follow Chamberlain. The Conservative Party therefore chose to tap three-term Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin as their voice; despite his creation as an earl in 1937 and his personal unwillingness, when called upon, Baldwin helped the Conservatives to retain control of the government and was instated as Prime Minister just in time to respond to the Japanese declaration of war in February, 1942.
Figure 59: Stanley Baldwin, Britain's wartime Prime Minister
Baldwin's essential policy position on Germany was summed up by a quote shortly after the Munich Agreement: "Can't we turn Hitler East? Napoleon broke himself against the Russians. Hitler might do the same." As a result, Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop was both surprised and gratified to receive a series of communiques that indicated that the Reich had nothing to fear regarding its foreign policy, so long as it was focused on the Balkans and Russia. Thus it was that, even as his government was involved in knitting together an alliance of all of the American powers including the United States, Prime Minister Baldwin maintained a decorous silence through April and May of 1942.
When the General Staff gave the order for the simultaneous execution of Case Basil in Bulgaria, and Case Albrecht in the Baltic, many outside the Fuehrer's War Cabinet were very surprised; however, the moves were seen as important to the protection of the Ploesti fields, and the shortening of the distance from the border to Leningrad and Moscow. This time, General Guderian had to deal with the difficult terrain around Sofia, Bulgaria; along the Black Sea coast, Lieutenant-General von Paulus led a surprisingly spirited dash to capture Varna and succeeded in linking up with Guderian just as the latter reached Sofia.
The two of them repositioned their forces on the Greek border just in time for the order to come down for Case Lykurgos, the occupation of Greece. This time the terrain was fully against General Guderian; however, he made the dash from Sofia to Athens in two weeks, through determined Greek resistance the whole way, without losing more than a dozen men and one tank. For this feat, Guderian finally received his coveted promotion to General der Panzertruppen.
In the north, General Hausser's assault through the Baltic, assisted by Lieutenant-General Becker, who had, in addition to his other duties, assumed command of an infantry corps by now, and two new SS generals, Gruppenfuehrer Eicke and Steiner, was hampered only by mud; despite the twenty divisions Lithuania alone fielded, they were swept aside by Hausser's thrust.
This concluded the period known as the April Wars; the Fuehrer had already decided that 1943 would be the decisive year in the struggle against international Slav-Bolshevism.
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